I look up and see her on the catwalk, and I think: ‘ That’s my baby girl’
As Thalia Heffernan joins New York’s model elite, her mother gives a poignant tribute to ‘our Christy Turlington’
Campbell who lives in the city. ‘She decided she really wanted to go to New York, so Rebecca Morgan set up several appointments and off she went — and straight off the plane she went to Ford and Elite first.
‘ I think she is much more an allAmerican girl. She hasn’t got that London look; edgy, pale and quirky. So in my mind, I thought she would do quite well over there and herself and Rebecca thought so, too.
‘We got a text from Thalia from New York on the Thursday evening going “They love me, they love me”,’ smiles Susan, who was sick in bed with flu at the time. I was at home worrying for her, as any mother would be, but i t was fantastic. Thalia was over the moon. She continued with her appointments and none of them said no. It was great, because there was a room for her with Megan. It’s a flat full of 27-year- olds in Brooklyn, so that’s a perfect base for her, staying with friends so she is at a home from home with that lovely social structure and close to Manhattan.
‘Yes, New York is much further away, but Skype is fantastic — I can see her and how her emotional state is. So that’s very comforting, and the time difference isn’t bad. She’s so busy now so I’m not speaking with her much, but I have Megan to check in with, too.’
Susan dismisses the idea that the 18year- old might go off the rails in New York. ‘Not at all,’ she laughs, raucously. ‘Now, the other two, Anna, who is now 27, and Georgia, who is 25, caused me much more trouble growing up. They were much more mad and getting into trouble — but Thalia is my sensible one.’
In fact, Susan says that being a model helped to keep her young daughter in check rather than encouraging irresponsible behaviour. ‘She became well known very quickly so it was actually a great help for me as a mom because they refused her entry into various clubs and establishments when she was underage. She got turned away from places lots of times and that suited me just fine! Not that Thalia was ever much of a drinker, but she enjoys going out with her friends.’
Susan believes that, ultimately, it’s Thalia’s sensible side that will help her to succeed in New York.
‘Thalia is her own person and is very savvy. You mightn’t think it, but she is well able to stick up for herself. She got frightened when she went to London and she said: “Mom, there are so many beautiful girls here waiting for this gig too.” So she is not under any illusions. It’s not an easy place to be in — there is a lot of jealousy with the different personalities, but she seems to be riding that OK.
‘Yes, she needs a bit of reassurance like any young woman, but it’s an interesting dichotomy as she has innate confidence. And she has been working for three years now, too, so she has had to learn to work a room and go in and introduce herself.
‘If she has doubts, she tells you, but she doesn’t look for advice; and if things don’t work out, she deals with it in her own way. I tell her be true to herself.
‘As a mother, I want to make sure she is happy. It’s a tough world — but this is what she wants.’
GIVEN her looks, her presence and her ice-cool attitude, it came as no surprise to industry watchers when Thalia Heffernan was signed to top London modelling agency Premier Model Management last August — sashaying in the footsteps of Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington.
And this week, the 18-year-old, from Terenure, south Dublin, paid a visit to the four most elite modelling agencies in New York — and wowed them. Every company the 5ft 10in beauty visited asked her to stay, but Thalia opted to sign with Ford, the agency behind supermodel l egends such as Elle Macpherson and Christie Brinkley.
One might assume strutting into the most prestigious modelling agencies on the planet — where you know you are worth it — demands a steely confidence far beyond the reach of most of us mere mortals.
But Thalia’s mother Susan Ebrill reveals that her ‘ baby’, in fact, suffers from crippling self-doubt and is as far removed from her supermodel persona as one can possibly be.
‘The night before she went to New York she was on the couch with her head in her knees and her boyfriend Anthony patting her on the back, and she was in a right state,’ Susan told the Mail. ‘ She was saying: “What if they don’t like me?”
‘Really, Thalia’s persona is not what she is — she is very unconfident in a way. I don’t know who she is when I see her on the catwalk with this incredibly confident presence, not looking right or left. She switches.
‘To me at home, she is a child. She loves to sit around eating chocolate and watching telly with her boyfriend, and she is my little girl who was absolutely traumatised — devastated — a few weeks ago when her little miniature hamster Prince died.’
The wrench of losing her baby to New York was eased somewhat for Susan — herself a former model with Thalia’s agent Rebecca Morgan, who runs Morgan The Agency — by the fact that Thalia had already spent a period in London, after being signed to Premier earlier this year.
Thalia had been long tipped for the top, but Susan — who works for the gourmet food company Wilde & Green and as an accountant for her husband Gerald Heffernan’s production company Frontier Films — was adamant that the youngest of her three daughters would finish school first.
As it happened, Thalia had barely opened her Leaving Certificate results when London called. ‘Gerald and I had an agenda that modelling wouldn’t interfere with school and that Thalia would do her Leaving Cert.
‘It was important — as they say, beauty fades and brains last forever — but also for her as, if she ever changed her mind and she ever got a bit wobbly with her decision, she didn’t have to go back and sit her Leaving.’
Not that Thalia was straining at the l eash, says her mother, l aughing. ‘Thalia’s a home girl really, not like me when I was 18 and couldn’t wait to leave home and I was over in Carnaby Street at the drop of a hat. She loves being at home with her boyfriend and they
I don’t know who Thalia is when I see her catwalk confidence
are like a pair of kids one minute and other times they are like an old couple.’
Thalia met her Clontarf boyfriend Anthony through friends two-and-ahalf years ago. The pair have been inseparable since.
But Susan, i n typical motherly fashion, says it’s a good year for Thalia’s big break in New York — because Anthony, in his final year of a law degree, also needs to put his head down and focus on his studies.
‘He has a big year ahead with his studying, so it might take the pressure off him. When she was leaving, we looked up flights for Anthony so that if she was so lonely he might go over.’
Despite her tender years, Thalia is an old hand at being in front of a camera or on a catwalk. She was just 15 years old when she walked into Morgan The Agency — breathtakingly beautiful, if slightly awkward.
‘When Thalia was 14 or 15, she suddenly went from being a little girl to this tall leggy thing with beautiful hair — and people were stopping her on the street,’ Susan says. ‘So we thought we better do it the proper way, rather than have her exploited in some way. We didn’t know how it would go, whether it would blow out and she’d move on to something else.’
Susan’s sensible attitude to her daughter’s potential career stemmed from her own experiences as a young model. ‘I was 24 when I did a bit of photographic modelling on a part-time basis, but not an awful lot. I never took it seriously, in comparison with Thalia who has wanted to be a model since she was about 14.
‘I knew Rebecca from years back and I brought Thalia down to see her. I didn’t say she was my daughter but
Thalia doesn’t have the edgy London look; she is more all-American
Rebecca’s instincts were spot on and Thalia really loved it.’
As well as her mother’s modelling credentials, the rest of Thalia’s family are impressively accomplished.
Her father Gerald, who runs Frontier Films, travelled for years filming Kathryn Thomas on No Frontiers, and is well known in showbiz circles. Designer John Rocha is one of his closest friends, and his famous daughter Simone is Thalia’s sister Georgia’s best friend.
Dad Gerald’s twin brother is a radio and TV presenter who has three sons, i ncluding hi p hop arti s t Jesse Heffernan and Aaron Heffernan, famous for playing hearthrob undercover cop Gav in Love/Hate, his comedic talents and as a founder of Collapsing Horse Theatre Company, with Game of Thrones superstar Jack Gleeson.
Thalia has said of Aaron: ‘He’s so talented i t’s sick. He’s the one I completely idolise.’
No doubt her cousin feels the same about the talented Thalia, who after that first meeting with Morgan worked steadily — including starring in many stunning Irish Daily Mail fashion shoots. With an already impressive portfolio behind her, in August Thalia made the move to England.
In contrast to the warm bosom of home, however, London proved to be a cold, impersonal place for the brighteyed ingènue. The life of a jobbing model isn’t all glitzy parties and glamour. Far from it, in fact, as Thalia soon found out.
‘Thalia was living in a model flat on her own in London but she was under such pressure — it was 31 degrees in London in the summer and she had five clients to see all over the city in the day. She was maybe starting at 5am and she’d go back at 7pm and have a microwave dinner, then sit in bed watching the telly or on Skype to home. Socially, it wasn’t good.
‘It’s tough as an 18-year- old on her own because, even though she had made friends, she felt she couldn’t go out at night as she had to be up early in the morning — and she works so hard.’
One good thing did come out of the London experience, though — it was there that Thalia met a New York agent who was very taken with her and the seed was planted.
Despite the distance, New York seemed a friendlier place, as Thalia already had connections there, including her sister Georgia’s friend Megan