When legendary fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo shot for an Eminence underwear print advertisement, no one could imagine that a single photograph could make so many pulses race and dramatically change the life of Jack Scalia, the young model exotically sprawled across the plain background.

“I started out as a baseball player. I was a pitcher, for the Montreal Expos. They had a lot of hopes, and so did I. I was touted as a future twenty-game winner, but an injury prevented me from going any further after three years.  It was devastating, all the time and effort I put in, all the love and friendships.  So after that I lived in Sacramento for a while, digging ditches, working in a Campbell’s Soup factory.  One day I stopped into a modeling agency there called Maniken Manor with some pictures I had from baseball.  Whatever potential I had as a model, I guess they saw it.  I just went in for kicks because I heard you could make thirty dollars an hour, and I was only making five, breaking my back.  I had already looked into it in Palm Beach when I was playing ball, and they told me I was much too heavy…I would never be a model.  Then I was introduced to Jimmy Grimme in San Francisco, who owns the most successful agency in Northern California, and he took me into Vidal Sassoon, chopped off my shoulder-length hair, and put me in a national ad.  But I started learning then I couldn’t get every job.  I thought I should, even if it was for a blonde, blue-eyed guy. After some success there, I came back to New York to take it by storm with twenty dollars in my pocket. No agency would take me.  It was a bad time for business in the recession of ’75, so Joey Hunter at the Ford agency suggested I go to Europe and grow up a little.  After about a month in Milan I started to work a little.  I spent six or seven months there and came back to New York. One agency wanted to put me on a test and I refused because I had done a lot of work in Europe and had a good portfolio.  Then Joey Hunter took me on and I worked the next day on a go-see, and that was sort of the shape of things to come.”

Ford took Jack’s dark color contrasts, ice blue eyes, full mouth and his signature cleft chin to the best European designers. Jack’s unique Mediterranean look coupled with his Americanized muscled physique made him the most sensual male model for hire. While the European male models impersonated the American “Ken Doll look”, Jack pulled off the reverse.  He attracted much attention as the gorgeous “Israeli” in a Sabra Liqueur ad and even received letters requesting personal appearances from “the handsome Jew” at synagogues.  One can make a strong argument that Jack Scalia is responsible for revolutionizing the way male models were utilized in the fashion industry. For decades male models were second string background, most often being used as a prop for the female model. This change was most evident when Jack became the face of a massive Jordache Jeans campaign. Everyone knew that the “Jordache Jeans Guy” was Jack Scalia.This type of name recognition led to a primitive use of the term “supermodel” in the world of male models. The likes of Marcus Schenkenberg and Tyson Beckford followed.

Francesco Scavullo’s photography continued to gain popularity with his covers of Cosmopolitan Magazine.  His Eminence underwear photo of Jack, which was stolen from bus shelters all over New York City, and his controversial portrait of a young Brooke Shields made him one of the most popular and sought after photographers of all time. Photographer, Bruce Weber, is today recognized for his iconographic ad images for companies like Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Abercrombie & Fitch.  Bruce Weber works mostly in black and white or toned shades.  However, early in his career, Bruce Weber shot Jack in color for a poster that first brought Bruce’s well-known image of chiseled male beauty into the public spotlight. This poster sold thousands of copies becoming the male equivalent of the unforgettable Farah Fawcett poster.

“I’ve learned that working with photographers you can not take anything that happens on the set personally.  I’m the kind of person that would like to fix everything, so if a photographer and a client disagreed, I would want to tell them how I think it would work.  I had to learn to accept what was happening. Also, there is a timing you develop with a photographer.  I won’t just stand there with one look, but I will keep talking and moving around without getting out of frame, projecting different feelings.  It’s working as a team and getting use to different personalities, different ways of doing things, different types of lighting. Now I usually know what they want.  In a catalog studio they want the heavy Jack Scalia look, the raised eyebrow, or the smile, and I’mlike thinking,“I love this suit I’m wearing. It took 200 polyesters to make it. But basically I am just myself.  They wouldn’t have me there unless they wanted what I can give them.  They sort of know what I am about now and they will say,“Jack, give me that look.” But I appreciate it when the photographer gives me some insight into what theshooting is about, so I will ask them what they want me to do. Sometimes I will look at the layouts, if it is a big promotion, to get a betteridea of my role and the whole feeling. But for a basic catalog shooting and some other kinds of bookings, you know what is going to happen. Sometimes when you are new to a photographer, or he is new to you, or new to the business, he might tend to rush things trying to get the right expression… “Give me this, give me that, etc.” They have seen the best you can do and they want that repeated immediately, but you have to get into it, and they have to get into it, you have to warm up to it, just like in baseball.”

As per Joe Hunter of Ford Models, Jack’s tough guy look became wildly popular because of the significant rise of sex and violence in our society during the late 70s--early 80s. Male models were turning up on the other pages of GQ Magazine desperately trying to engage the lens the way Jack did so passionately. 

“I was extremely insecure. Modeling fed the shell of the ego, but it wasn’t the spirit inside.  It helped me put up a front, because that is involved in performing, but that was only the shell.  It made it much easier for me to take compliments, but I didn’t have the awareness of myself as a person.”

Despite a thriving modeling career, Jack still felt inadequate and admits to claiming to be someone he thought people wanted him to be, because he really didn’t know who he was.  Always frank about his personal problems, Jack admits to struggling through addictions to drugs and alcohol throughout the majority of his modeling career. It was Joe Hunter of Ford Models that Jack called one dark day on the ledge of a building in Germany. He said to Joe that if he didn’t get him into rehab was going to jump. Joehad to call him back. Jack saw his life in front of him and prayed for God’s help.  He realized if he continued doing what he was doing he would end up dead anyway, he stepped back and the phone rang. It was Joe, who told him he would be in rehab the day after tomorrow.

“I stopped doing liquor ads and underwear ads rather early in my modeling career.  They brought me a lot of recognition and I got to work with great photographers, but I’ve tried very hard to keep my morals intact. I believe in the family, I believe in God, and I believe in my county.  I’m pretty tight with those three things.”

Jack’s sincerity and his poignant expressions were captured in every photo and thus the perfect segue into becoming a soulful and successful actor.