Cheryl Tiegs (born September 25, 1947 at Breckenridge, Minnesota) became one of America's top fashion models in the late 1960s and maintained this role into the late '80s.
She was the first of the modern supermodels. Her stunning smile and tall frame embodied the classic, athletic California look. by the time she was 17, Tiegs had made the cover of Glamour. The covers of Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, TIME, and Vogue later followed.
Her main claim to fame though, was a long-running affiliation with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which featured her on the cover in 1970, 1975 and 1983.
While posing for the 1978 swimsuit issue, she took a quick dip in the water on the beach wearing a white cotton fishnet swimsuit. When she emerged from the water, photographers — professional and amateur — flocked to her and asked her to pose for an extended amount of time - about 50 minutes. She had no idea why the photographers suddenly took such an interest in her.
She didn't discover why until she saw the final prints from the shoot: when wet, the suit was almost completely translucent. Later in an interview she claimed she had no idea that the swimming suit was virtually see-through because "it was opaque when it was dry".
Tiegs has been married four times: Stan Dragoti (1970-1979), Peter Hill Beard (1981-1983), Tony Peck (1990-1995), and Rod Stryker (1998-2001). She has three sons, one by Peck and two by Stryker.
