Copyright 2000 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
The Plain Dealer
July 19, 2000 Wednesday, FINAL / ALL
SECTION: ARTS
& LIFE; Pg. 1E
LENGTH: 880 words
HEADLINE: AN EYE FOR BEAUTY;
FOR 20 YEARS,
KAREN FIELDS HAS BEEN DISCOVERING MODELS AND ACTORS
BYLINE: By Clint O'Connor; Plain Dealer Reporter
BODY:
Karen Fields is a survivor. In the often cutthroat worlds of fashion, film, television and
advertising, she has managed to thrive during 20 years as head of Cleveland's
top model and talent agency.
As director of Ford Cleveland - which was David
& Lee until Ford acquired it last year - she has found thousands of models and
actors for print ads, fashion shows, TV commercials and major motion pictures.
Fields, 59, is charming, witty and quite adept at schmoozing, especially on the
phone. In the main room of Ford Cleveland's office, on the 16th floor of the
Bond Court building, five women sit at crammed-together desks, Fields and her
matriarchy of bookers: Becky Breitmayer, Joan Berry, Teri Machi and Gretchen
Thompson.
The women are currently juggling about 500 models and actors, including
children and seniors, sending their photos, measurements and demo tapes to
casting directors and art directors. Fields looks at everyone who comes through
the door and, she says, opens every piece of mail. The agency, where supermodel
Angie Everhart started, holds open fashion calls once a month. The calls bring
about 40
"young, tall, thin, beautiful people," says Fields.
"We tell each one yes' or
no.' If it's no' we say why."
The whys could be anything.
"Someone's skin may need clearing up, someone's nose might be a little strong
for their face, their lips might disappear when they smile," she says.
"Some need to lose weight, some need to gain weight."
Usually, Fields is working for a client with a specific need.
"They call up and say I need a man, 35-45, he needs a wife and they need to have
a kid.'" She has also provided numerous cast members and extras for films that shoot in
Ohio, including
"The Shawshank Redemption,"
"Rain Man," and
"Proximity" with Rob Lowe, which was on location here last month.
Karen Hoffman grew up in Cleveland Heights, not an especially career-oriented
girl.
"I was raised to be a princess," she says. After high school, she worked
briefly at the Cleveland Press newspaper, taking death notices
"until I got chest pains." The death notices were pretty depressing, but she met and fell in love with an
ad salesman named Chuck Fields. They married, moved to Beachwood and had three
sons: Scott, now 37, and twins Adam and Jordan, 34.
Chuck became a stockbroker and Karen spent most of the 1960s and '70s as a
homemaker, going to PTA meetings and carpooling. As her kids got older, she
decided to take on a part-time job. Chuck called his friend David Whitfield,
who, with wife Lee, had launched David
& Lee in the late '60s. According to Karen, the conversation went something like
this:
"Can she type?" asked Whitfield.
"Well, no," said Chuck.
"Does she have any office skills?" tried Whitfield.
"Well, not really,"
said Chuck.
"Well," Whitfield asked,
"what can she do?"
"She talks on the phone a lot."
That was 1977 and a part-time job led to running the Cleveland operation in
1980 when the Whitfields moved to Chicago to run the David
& Lee office there. (The Whitfields have since passed away, David died in 1992,
and Lee in 1997.)
"I didn't know what I was doing, but I loved it," says Fields of her first weeks on the job.
"I still love it today. I love the talent and I admire the talent. They do what
I could never do - become a character."
Her world came crashing down in 1990 when Chuck, then 53, died of complications
from pneumonia.
"I was pretty comatose for a while," says Fields.
"About five weeks into it, Lee called me up and said, 'Hon, I
need you.' If not for that, I'd probably still be rolled up in a ball on the
couch."
Fields returned to the high-energy work environment.
"Every night I'd be pulling into the garage crying, thinking 'I did it. Another
day.'" A support group of six other women who had recently lost their husbands helped
immensely.
"We met every Wednesday night for two years," she says, her eyes welling up with tears at the memory.
Just as she was learning to tread water again, she was hit by another big wave:
In 1992, Fields was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through a year of
chemotherapy and radiation treatment. In 1997, her five-year cancer-free
anniversary, she rented a nightclub and celebrated with 90 friends.
Today, Fields, who lives in Moreland Hills, says she
feels strong and, despite two hip-replacement surgeries, keeps in shape by tap
dancing ("I just can't do any jumps"). Last year's Ford acquisition made her agency a bigger player (Ford has 10
offices worldwide and more than $40 million in annual revenues), but Fields
still focuses primarily on Northeast Ohio.
The biggest change in the industry, she says, other than computers, has been
the increased demand for black and other minority models.
"Thank goodness," says Fields.
"Right now we're very much in need of Hispanic and Asian models."
The large wall on one side of the office is filled with racks of photo-cards of
the Ford talent. In addition to hair and eye colors, the women's cards list
height, bust, waist, hips, dress size and shoe size. The
men's list suit, shirt and slacks measurements.
Fields, the great assessor, breezes by and grabs a brand-new card, the one for
John Risner - young, blue-eyed, buff.
"He is going to work like crazy," says Fields.
"I just know it."
GRAPHIC: Photo by: DAVID I. ANDERSEN / THE PLAIN DEALER; Karen Fields, flanked by Becky
Breitmayer, left, and Gretchen Thompson, sits in mission control - the main
room at the Ford Cleveland agency, which includes hundreds of photo-cards of
models and actors.
LOAD-DATE: July 20, 2000
