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Q: Much as Annette Bening may like to take credit for being the model for the Columbia Pictures logo, as you reported in quoting her recently, it simply isn't true. A story about the "Columbia Pictures Lady" portrait by Doug McCash, art critic for the New Orleans Times Picayune, reports that Bening's claim "was interesting news to the French Quarter artist who painted it and the former New Orleanian who modeled for it." A retraction would be appreciated.
Brian Flores, New Orleans
A: Quite so. But in fairness to Annette Bening, she didn't volunteer the information; I asked her, and she said that so she had been told. Doug McCash put me in touch with the artist Michael Deas, then of New Orleans, now of New York, who sent me a photograph of his actual model, writing me: "I am the illustrator who in 1992 painted the latest version the Columbia Pictures logo. I am troubled by recent claims by the actress Annette Bening that she was the inspiration for my painting. But I have never met Annette Bening, nor have I ever spoken to her.
"While Ms. Bening is a talented actress, she was not the model for my Columbia Pictures lady. The actual model is Jenny Joseph, a homemaker and mother of two children now living in the Houston area. She was an exceptionally gracious and unassuming model, and received very little compensation for her work in 1992. The face of the Columbia lady is perhaps one of the most famous in the world ... and it happens to belong to Ms. Jenny Joseph."
Jenny Joseph, the artist's model for the Columbia Pictures logo, in a photo taken in the artist's studio in 1992. Photo by Kathy Anderson
Doug McCash's story quotes the model: "These days, Jenny Joseph is a Houston muralist and mother of two. She is bemused by Bening's recent appropriation of her moment in the sun. 'When I go to the movies, I get my 15 minutes of fame,' she said. 'The kids get a kick out of it.'"
