Claudia Schiffer Biography

NAME: Claudia Schiffer

OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Television Actress, Model

BIRTH DATE: August 25, 1970 (Age: 41)

PLACE OF BIRTH: Rheinberg, Germany

ZODIAC SIGN: Virgo

Claudia Schiffer was born on August 25, 1970 in Rheinberg, Germany, and raised in Dusseldorf. Originally eager to follow in her father's footsteps by becoming a lawyer, Schiffer warmed to modeling after being discovered in a nightclub in 1987. With her 5'11" frame and striking angular countenance, Schiffer was a natural, first gracing the cover of Elle magazine, then in 1989, landing the coveted spot as the centerpiece of the Guess? jeans advertising campaign. The sultry black-and-white ads turned her into a familiar face, and paved the way for over 500 magazine covers throughout her career.

Schiffer dated magician David Copperfield for about five years from 1994 until 1999. They first met in 1993 at one of Copperfield's stage shows, where he invited her on stage to take part in his 'Flying' illusion, and he then subsequently sawed her in half during a joint appearance on German television. Throughout their relationship, she often joined Copperfield in his stage shows as a "special guest assistant" in a number of illusions, including being levitated, guillotined and sawn in half. Following the end of her relationship with Copperfield, she had a relationship with Tim Jefferies.

Modeling Success

There had been no mistake. Not long after her first runway shows, the lanky blonde was chosen by designer Karl Lagerfeld to be the face of the famous Chanel line. She then starred in a global campaign for Guess jeans, catapulting her to worldwide superstardom. Schiffer would eventually appear on the covers of more than 500 magazines, including Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Rolling Stone, where she became the first model ever to grace the famed music magazine's cover. She walked virtually every major designer runway and became nearly omnipresent in marketing campaigns.

Beneath her angelic looks, Schiffer was - as Karl Lagerfeld said - "all work, very serious, essentially a smooth-running German business machine." Schiffer gave credit to her family for her business sense. "I had a good start because my family was behind me," she said. "Some girls just starting out make the wrong choices because they have to do those things to make money. I was able to say, let's have fun, do things I like to do. And they turned out to be the right things." As a result, she became a key member of the well-paid, universally recognized "supermodel" set of the 1980s and 90s, joining colleagues like Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford in this elite status. For a time, Schiffer was the highest-paid model in the world, commanding fees as high as $50,000 a day and earning millions more through licensing and endorsements.

Later Career

Schiffer also tried her hand at acting, hosting television specials and taking bit parts in movies, with varying degrees of success. Of her turn in the 1999 film Black and White, for example, a rather harsh New York Times reviewer wrote, "In the case of poor Claudia Schiffer, the German supermodel, who plays Dean's lover, the movie stops to applaud her efforts to wrestle English to the floor and pin it."

In 2010, Schiffer turned 40, an age at which many models have long since been forced to retire. Just months before her 40th birthday, however, Schiffer won the Elle Style Awards trophy for Model of the Year. She has the freedom to be as choosy as she likes with her projects, but isn't ready to retire just yet. "The most important thing is that you take the profession very seriously, because it is a business," Schiffer said of her approach to modeling. "If you really want to make it, you have to give it your all. And well, I work everyday. You work weekends. You work holidays. And you just - that is your passion and that's what you want to do."