Hardly anyone remembers who Audrey is today, but there's a damn good chance that you've seen her face, not to mention all the rest of her. Audrey wasn't born with much. Her parents decidedly lacked in the financial department, a situation made worse by their divorce when Audrey was in her early teens. Soon after the divorce, Audrey's mother took her daughter to New York City, where she hoped to capitalize on Audrey's assets, namely her daughter's exquisitely proportioned lithe body and perfectly symmetrical face. The girl was pretty much the embodiment of a Greek statue. When reading the last few sentences did your mind instantly go to prostitution? If so, don't worry, in this case exploitation only meant forcing a 15 year old girl to lie about her age and audition as a chorus girl for low budget Broadway plays. See? Much better. Audrey, though good looking, was not a very good dancer, but did manage to land enough roles to keep her and her mother off the street.
Things changed for the teenage Audrey in 1906 when a well known photographer noticed her walking down the street one day, and becoming totally enamored with her, begged for the opportunity to take pictures of her. If that sounds creepy, another story claims that the photographer accidentally hit Audrey with his car, and then wanted to take her picture. Either way, needing the money, Audrey (and her mother) agreed. The photographer then showed the photographs, again pictures of a teenage girl, to a sculptor friend who also became enamored with her. The sculptor then hired Audrey to model for a few statues he wanted to create. This being the art world, he of course asked her to pose nude. Again, needing the money, Audrey and her mother agreed. The statues were such a big hit that it wasn’t long before other artists also began seeking Audrey out for her “talents”, and thus a career of standing around naked was born.
Over the next decade Audrey was the model for hundreds of statues and monuments, most of them nude. The majority of these could be found in New York City, but many others were spread across the country from one coast to the other. The culmination of her career was the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, a world's fair which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal in 1915. Three quarters of the statues and carvings at the exposition were graced by her image. She gained international notoriety and thousands of love letters and marriage proposals poured in from around the world. To capitalize on her success, Audrey moved to Hollywood to become an actress in the newly established silent film industry. There was just one problem with this plan, Audrey couldn't act worth shit. However, she was willing to take off all of her clothes, becoming the first woman to do so in a movie that wasn't a porn. As an aside, the advent of the moving pornographic picture began pretty much the moment the movie camera was invented. This sans clothes willingness got her parts in four movies, though she only did the nude bits, with stunt doubles doing all the acting.
Despite all the fame, Audrey was not so good with money. It seemed to flow out as quickly as it flowed in. Her Hollywood career fell apart after a few years, a fact she blamed on a jilted suitor who she reported to the government for being a German sympathizer. She and her mother then moved into a boarding house run by a nice doctor. However, the doctor fell in love with Audrey and soon murdered his wife to prove it. The press coverage effectively ended her career at the age of 28. Audrey and her mother moved to upstate New York where they made a living selling silverware door to door. Over the next several years the decline in Audrey's fame and fortune led to a deterioration in her mental health. After a failed attempt to commit suicide she became delusional and paranoid. Finally, at age of 40, Audrey’s mother had her committed into an insane asylum. She remained there for the rest of her life, forgotten, even by her family, until being re-discovered by a niece when she was in her nineties. Audrey died in the asylum at the age of 105 in 1996.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Audrey_Munson_3.jpg