DGerman model Tatjana Patitz has died of breast cancer at the age of 56, her agent announced. The model agency in New York had previously confirmed the death of Hamburg-born Patitz to the German Press Agency. Accordingly, she died on Wednesday morning in her adopted California home. She leaves behind a son, her sister and her parents, according to the statement.
Along with colleagues like Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell, Patitz was one of the most successful supermodels of the 80s and 90s. She graced the front pages of numerous major fashion magazines, was seen in George Michael’s famous music video for his hit “Freedom” and became known above all through pictures by star photographer Peter Lindbergh. She was the “most haunting of the original supermodels,” wrote US Vogue. “Tatjana was always the European symbol of chic – like Romy Schneider-meets-Monica Vitti,” Vogue boss Anna Wintour was quoted as saying in an article in the magazine on Wednesday. “She was a lot less visible than her peers — more mysterious, more mature, more aloof — and that had its own appeal.”
Patitz was born in Hamburg on March 25, 1966 to an Estonian mother and a German father and grew up in Sweden. As a child she was a passionate rider. In the early 80s she took part in a beauty pageant in Sweden and won third place. However, it took some time before her career really took off – mainly thanks to the pictures taken by star photographer Lindbergh. “People have always said to me that I look special, that I don’t look like anyone else,” Patitz once told Vogue. “And that that’s why I would make it.”
rumors about relationships
Patitz never saw himself as a real part of the supermodel clique. “It was never a friendship, we lived too different lives,” said the model once to the German Press Agency. Patitz moved to the beach in Malibu, California, and landed a few movie roles as well. There was always speculation about relationships with Hollywood stars and musicians like Richard Gere, Johnny Depp, Pierce Brosnan or Seal.
From a temporary marriage to a businessman, Patitz had a son named Jonah, whom she once described as “the source of my happiness.” Above all because of him, she could imagine returning to Germany, she said in an interview a few years ago. “In Europe you can feel a lot more depth. I find Europe to be more authentic, I sometimes miss that. Americans are more superficial.”
Most of the time, however, Patitz tried to keep her private life out of the public eye. “When I live my everyday life, I’m completely normal,” the model once said of the German Press Agency. “When people ask me what I do, I just say I work ‘in the fashion industry.’ I don’t want all that attention. My life is much bigger. I am not my career. I noticed early on where the limit was and I thought: I can’t do it now. I am very close to nature, not a city person. You have to be able to delimit that.”