Caprice, the newly-voted Woman of the Year, makes full use of her biggest and bodily assets
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Caprice
Women of no discernible talent beyond looking good in a Wonderbra may rejoice in the triumph of Caprice Bourret. For readers of Maxim magazine have voted her International Woman of the Year. Caprice is a professional babe, a living doll whose assets are her greatest, well, assets. That seemingly perfect body, with sensual curves. Those pert but generously rounded breasts. Her tiny waist accentuating shapely hips . . . Every toned inch upholstered in silky smooth soft skin - and topped, of course, by the inevitable mane of pale golden blonde hair. Add to this physically powerful equation a readiness to appear in front of a camera with the absolute minimum of clothing, and you have the essence of what matters most to the men who read Maxim.
Feminists should shed no tears for poor Caprice. She may seem to be exploited to fulfil sexist fantasies of the most cliched and degrading variety, but this is very much the result of her own sweet doing. For, Caprice has endeavoured to make
the most of her one great talent: self-projection. She is a beautiful girl. But could so easily have become just another of those leggy, big-breasted blondes who hog car bonnets at the Motor Show or add decorative interest at any construction industry trade fair. Instead, with the
powerful support of her feisty publicist, Ghislain Pascal, she has fought for and won celebrity status.
After just five years' residency in Britain, she has a greater public profile than most members of the royal family. She is a constant source of inspiration and investigation for the tabloid press. Her name is practically a household word. And her website is visited by 8000 people (read men) each month. Yet, she is famous for nothing much but being famous.
Caprice has never graced the international fashion show runways. She has never been photographed for Vogue. Even the storm of publicity which surrounded her debut as the new Wonderbra girl was based on a clever spin of the facts. For, contrary to the impression unleashed at the time, Caprice was not exactly stepping into supermodel Eva Herzigova's C-cup. Rather than having her remarkable cleavage featured in the brand's billboard and magazine campaign, she had simply been booked for some promotional work - which, thanks to the strident efforts of her dedicated publicist, received a considerable amount of tabloid attention.
As anyone who has viewed Heavens on Earth on satellite or Caprice's Travels on cable television may agree, she does not come across on the small screen as a towering intellectual. Yet, Caprice clearly possesses a steely determination to succeed. She has an innate understanding of how to market herself as a brand. She knows how to maintain her fame - and capitalise on it.
Within the past month, her name has been linked with Prince Andrew.
Naturally, once the first wave of speculation about this relationship began to subside, her publicist swiftly issued a denial that the prince and the travel-show girl were anything but good friends. ''Caprice has a boyfriend in LA - it
wasn't a dinner for two.'' Only last year's PR ruse of the Ginger twosome received greater attention.
All Caprice's romances tend to be consummated in a storm of blinding flashlights - but, as if ignited by nothing except publicity, the flame of passion is swiftly extinguished. She has been linked with a string of rich and famous men - Middle Eastern tycoons, footballers, and, for one unforgettable nanosecond, an ageing leopardskin-trousered rock star. As her name became romantically linked with a constantly changing roster of the rich and famous, there would always be a tabloid tip-off to ensure photographic evidence of each supposedly clandestine tryst was captured for the gossip columns. Perhaps some of these relationships were of greater substance than others. Her affair with the England squad footballer Tony Adams lasted three months. The heavily-reported dalliance with Rod Stewart? Little more than three minutes. Just as it seems reasonable to assume that her extraordinary ambition
drove the formation of most of these high-profile liaisons, it is probably the very same ambition which ensures they quickly implode. There is no dividing line between this woman's professional life and private life. Once, therefore, the newsworthiness of any relationship subsides, Caprice must instinctively know that it's time to move on.
Transforming oneself into an icon is no small job. But Caprice took to heart the splendid example of Elizabeth Hurley. As a bit-part actress, Hurley had absolutely no public profile before trapping
her voluptuous curves inside Gianni
Versace's infamous safety-pin evening gown for the premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral. The media frenzy which this dress detonated eclipsed all coverage of the movie and its stars. It secured Hurley instant celebrity, proving that, in this glamour-starved era, a reasonably good-looking girl really can become famous by doing nothing more than wearing a very silly frock in the immediate vicinity of some tabloid photographers.
And, when invited to the National Television Awards in Aberdeen during 1996, Caprice followed suit - or more accurately frock - and borrowed the most outrageously revealing creation from that particular season's Versace collection. The furore caused by this condom-like sheath of transparent stretch lace cemented her name in the public's awareness.
She seemed to have it all: status, recognition, wealth, connections. Yet this new-found fame only made her the target of prurient tabloid fascination, culminating in the publication of teenage photographs which purported to show she had once been a flat-chested, big-nosed brunette.
Other stories confirmed that her family background was not one of inordinate wealth - as Caprice had insinuated on the television documentary Filthy Rich. Her estranged father turned out to be a car salesman, while her mother was exposed as a credit card fraudster and bankrupt.
Far from privileged, Caprice had a relatively tough upbringing in a small Californian town during the seventies. Her parents separated when she was aged just five. And, while this family never exactly knew squalor, her mother struggled to raise Caprice and her younger sister, Tiffany, while a court battle over maintenance raged on. Doubtless the family's struggle through these formative years contributed to her gritty determination to succeed. Later, as the financial strain eased, Valerie Bourret sent her elder daughter to a private school and created what later proved to be an illusion of comparative wealth.
Like so many Californian youngsters, Caprice harboured ambitions of becoming a beauty queen, model, or actress. And like so many Californian mothers, Valerie did everything possible to make this dream a reality. With her encouragement, Caprice began to enter beauty pageants.
At 18, she came runner-up in the Miss California contest.
She had already been spotted by a modelling scout, Lynn Venturella. And, in the wake of her mother's arrest and subsequent bankruptcy, Caprice seized the chance to move to New York - where she is said to have secured regular work as a swimwear and jeans catalogue model.
Caprice had never shown much interest in boys of her own age. She was much more interested in the older, wealthier men whom her good looks readily attracted. And it was the pursuit of one such specimen that first brought her to London.
In New York, Caprice might never have been more than a tiny minnow in a very big pool. But, in London, while her modelling assignments were probably no more demanding, prestigious, or remunerative than the work she had left behind, the striking Californian quickly registered on the social scene.
Whether through happy co-
incidence or design, she became associated with London's all-shopping, all-partying It-girls.
Signed to Pascal (the architect of Tamara Beckwith's otherwise inexplicable public profile), she was featured on the Filthy Rich television documentary, claiming that she had been born into a life of luxury. The utter nonsense which she talked was irrelevant; Caprice was easily the most glamorous woman
featured in the entire production. The British tabloid media woke up to a new leggy blonde with starry potential - and an insatiable thirst for exposure. Her celebrity status was promptly secured.
Soon, no awards ceremony seemed entirely complete without her presence: the blonde bombshell in a low-cut dress, struggling to open that all-important envelope and announce the winner's name. Advertisers such as Pizza Hut grabbed the opportunity to bask in her fame. While Elizabeth Hurley secured her lucrative Estee Lauder contract, Caprice was named the face of Californian Prunes - well, at least it was regular work. From an initial break as meeter and greeter on Ian Wright's show, her modestly successful television career has progressed to fronting Caprice's Travels.
And then there is her burgeoning music career. On the strength of what she later admitted (with arresting candour) had been ''three lousy demos'', Virgin signed her for a five-album deal. As yet,
the music world still awaits a
release date for the first of these.
But her debut single, Oh Yeah, did briefly enjoy a modest success. Charting at 24, it certainly out-performed Naomi Campbell's foray into pop.
Her pneumatic body might not have fitted the fashion world's spookily slender ideal of physical perfection. But those generous curves did grace the pages of Sports Illustrated. Caprice was featured in a host of lad-culture magazines - in varying stages of undress, and invariably linked to a story about her unhappiness in love. That same body is slated for stapling soon in a Playboy centrefold.
Caprice is happy to admit that
she's got wherever she is by virtue
of the way her body looks. But what sets her apart from every other big-breasted blonde wannabe? Not only has she got what it takes, Caprice knows how to use it.
John Davidson
