It's Tuesday afternoon, and we're at the R. Couri Hay PR company's photo shoot for the opening of the new IMAX film Kilimanjaro at the American History Museum. The reason Couri and company are involved? This documentary, by David Brashear, the same director from "Everest," has involved a client in his next work, and in two climbs up the highest peak in Africa. Kilimanjaro features Heidi Albertsen among its six central figures, who, for those beyond the know, is internationally acclaimed, an Elite model-of-the-year, winning over Gisele and many other women of one of the world's most successful agencies. This climb has earned her a spread in the New York Post style section, a piece in the Daily News apparently on its way, and any number of other press releases.
My photo shoot--that's right, with me on the side of the camera we have all come to love and prefer--is a comedy of narrow escapes, beginning with Heidi's narrowly dodging an ugly car accident on the Upper West Side. Held up, she doesn't make it to the special showing, and there only four of us waiting when she does show, nearly an hour late.
I'm relieved to hear that she's seen it before, and it doesn't seem to affect her mood in the slightest that this major event has gone on without her.
"I'm a model," she pouts, and it's clear that this has proved carte blanche for some time.
She preens and prattles throughout the shoot, raving eagerly about the film to each and every one of us who happens to listen.
In the end, despite the bad angle of the sun, the near-death moment, and the extra pounds and bikini lines she's brought back from "four nights in Cabo San Lucas without sleeping," we came out with more than just a handful of great shots.
Here's hoping for a print in the Daily News tomorrow, and propers to Christine Shaw, the most talented, vibrant, and genuine woman in the whole fucking business.
