Janice Dickinson life and biography

Janice Dickinson is an American model, fashion photographer, actress, author and agent. She has described herself as the first supermodel. One of the most successful models throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she expanded her profession to reality television in 2003 by judging for four cycles on America's Next Top Model. She subsequently opened her own modeling agency in 2005, which was documented as The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.

When 14-year-old Janice Dickinson first saw Jim Morrison and The Doors in a 1969 concert, she instantly knew she wanted to take center stage. Quickly embarking upon what would become an ultra-successful career in modeling, Janice proceeded to break the mold of the classic American blonde beauty, and became the first model to insist on being paid like a star - and treated like one, too!

By the time she was nineteen, Janice had moved to New York City to pursue her career fulltime. She was featured in the pages and on the covers of every major fashion magazine from Vogue, Elle, Harper's Bazaar and Cosmopolitan, to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and Playboy. She also walked the runways in Milan, Paris, and New York, wearing the clothes of Versace, Armani, Calvin Klein, and many others.

In the spring of 2003, Janice began a long run on the highly-rated UPN dramality series America's Next Top Model. Hosted by Tyra Banks, Janice became one of the show's breakout personalities as she served on the expert judging panel searching for the nation's next supermodel.

In 2002, Janice's first book No Lifeguard On Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel (Regan Books) candidly revealed the inside story to her meteoric rise to the top of the modeling world, her painful and bumpy slide to the bottom, and the shocking, reckless, steamy, funny, outrageous and drug-filled moments in between. Everything About Me Is FakeAnd I'm Perfect (Regan Books), her 2004 follow-up, is based on her opinions on beauty, plastic surgery and the way American society perceives it. Sales for her first two books were so strong, that a third title - Check Please! Dating, Mating & Extricating (Regan Books) was released in June, 2006.

Janice has also starred in her own one woman show, WWJD: What Would Janice Do, for which she also served as writer and director. Janice's life is gratefully centered on genuine friendships, a healthy lifestyle, an interest in photography, and the joys of motherhood.

Janice Dickinson was born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Ray Dickinson, of Belarusian descent, and Jenie Dickinson née Pietrzykoski, of Polish descent. She was raised in Hollywood, Florida, with two sisters, elder Alexis, a real estate agent, and younger Debbie, a model.

Dickinson has been open about the emotional and physical abuse she suffered as a child and teenager, and how her father used to sexually abuse one of her sisters. Of her childhood with her "rageoholic pedophile" of a father, Dickinson stated, "Because I wouldn't give in and let him have sex with me, I was verbally and physically abused on a daily basis. I was told that I looked like a boy and wouldn't amount to anything. I think if you abuse a child, your balls should be cut off. You should be castrated immediately."

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