Thanks to two summers of modelling, represented by Elite Model Management in Chicago, the All-American beauty proved to also have brains -- she traded in the glamorous life a model (at least temporarily) to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University, on scholarship.

The former high school valedictorian pulled off the same exceptional grades in college as in high school, but she didn't stick around long enough to see where a degree in engineering would have taken her. She left school in order to pursue a full-time modelling career. After working for photographer Victor Skrebneski in Chicago and becoming a success, Cindy took her supermodel assets to New York City in 1986.

To no great surprise, it didn't take long for Cindy to establish herself as a model. After two years, she was walking down catwalks for the biggest fashion designers and posing as a cover girl for fashion magazines. She had become one of the first to enter the elite group of original supermodels, along with models Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Linda Evangelista, and she had the salary to prove it. More...