VINTAGE MODEL : 62 Years Have Been Exceedingly Kind to Busier-Than-Ever Free-Lancer Frankie Hall

One of the busiest models in Orange County is Frankie Hall, a grandmother who says she is more in demand as an older model than she was in her younger days.

Hall, who turns 62 today, looks back on her 43 years of modeling with few regrets. She never made it to New York, which was her dream and that of every other model when she began walking the runways in the 1940s, but she did work steadily in a competitive field while raising three children from her marriage of 41 years.

“I look at some of the models--I have a friend who went to New York and got divorced several times--and I think about my family, and I’m happy with how it turned out,” she says. “I haven’t missed anything that I’ve wanted to do.”

A resident of San Clemente, Hall spent a recent morning carefully removing Christmas trimmings from a flocked tree in her blue and white living room while talking about her career. Although on this day she is dressed in gray jogging togs--accented by hot-pink satin sneakers, smoked-gray eye shadow and diamond earrings--it’s easy to imagine her, with her perfect bone structure and porcelain skin, waltzing in a couture gown under the klieg lights.

Hall’s career began when she won a Glamour magazine modeling contest while a college student in Richmond, Va. She was 17. Soon after, she met and married her husband, Sydney, but she kept modeling in the many towns where his job as an engineer led them.

In those days, she says, most of the modeling in small towns was done in “tea room” fashion shows by young free-lance models like Hall, who were paid about $30 a day.

“At every show, they’d play ‘A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody,’ and all the girls dreamed about going to New York,” she recalled.

During the past decade, Hall has worked primarily in Southern California with two agencies--Cunningham in Los Angeles and Artist Management in San Diego--and as a free-lancer.

She has appeared in national magazines, commercials and most recently in the daytime soap opera “Santa Barbara.”

The fact that there are not many models Hall’s age helps keep her busy. She sometimes forgets that she hadn’t planned on being a 62-year-old model.

“My age hasn’t hindered me,” she says. “In fact, I work more now than ever. I thought I would stop modeling when I was in my 30s. Nobody wanted to become a matron model.”

Older models in past years were considered frumpy. They wore half-sizes and got the least glamorous jobs. But Hall never became a frumpy model--and never stopped getting glamorous assignments.

With the population aging, more people seem to want to see mature women in glamorous clothes, Hall says.

“I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, it’s great to see someone your age wearing these fashions.’ It makes them feel like they can wear them, too.”

Fashion shows have occupied the bulk of Hall’s career, and, she says, the excitement of runway work hasn’t abated in 4 decades.

“I never get used to it,” says the willowy blonde. “It’s just exciting. The adrenaline starts to flow, and there’s a lot of nervous energy. Of course, I’m always nervous about that first step out.”

Most models have a fear of tripping down the runway, although few actually stumble. Hall did, however, during her first big fashion show.

“There was a wire across the stage, and I tripped over it. I just laughed, because what are you going to do--you either laugh or cry.”

Hall, who works about 150 fashion shows a year, says runway modeling is not all sequined gowns and high fashion. It takes energy to drive all over Southern California for the various shows, stamina to haul bags of accessories wherever they are needed, and a professional attitude to always appear on time and prepared for each assignment.

Except for Nordstrom fashion shows, which provide everything the models need, most shows require models to bring an assortment of their own shoes, jewelry and accessories. If you forget a pair of black pumps, you’re sunk.

But forgetting shoes is nothing compared to the problems posed by the two biggest challenges of runway modeling: choreography and quick changes.

“Making sure you get the choreography right, that’s the hardest part. You may have six or seven changes to coordinate, and you have to keep the beat. And nobody wants the runway empty--you’ve got to be out there on cue.”

Like fashions, models have changed in 40 years. Competition has bred a taller, curvier figure. Hall, who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall, is considered a short model, but when she began her career, that height was regarded as just right.

“Beautiful bodies are in right now,” she says. “A lot of the international models are getting shapelier. Back in the days when I started, girls were heavier. Then Twiggy started the real skinny craze, and now they’re shapelier again.”

The way a model walks down a runway has evolved too. Thirty years ago, there was little body movement, and the emphasis was on the clothes, Hall says. Several years ago, models began swaying their shoulders back and forth as they walked, emphasizing the top half of their bodies. Now the attention has switched to the hips, which are swayed more than ever. Most of these styles governing body shapes and movement reflect European influence, Hall said.

Modeling fees have also changed over the years. Typical pay in Orange County is about $100 to $125 per 90-minute show, not counting rehearsal, travel, fitting and waiting fees, which are sometimes added. Pay is more in Los Angeles than in Orange County and San Diego, and more at night than during the day. Hall works days and nights in all three locations.

Unlike many women her age, Hall doesn’t have to watch her weight. It seems to stay off naturally. And the 112-pound mother of three grown children has no exercise regimen.

“I should. I keep saying I’ll start and never do. But I really need to firm up.”

Another problem for many but not for Hall is finding clothes that fit. As a professional who has to make a variety of sizes fit her Size 6 figure, Hall prides herself on being able to make any outfit work. “It’s amazing what you can do with a couple of straight pins and some masking tape,” she says.

But that skill, which may be a virtue at a fashion show, can be troublesome when she is shopping for her own clothes. She has a tendency to say, “Oh, I can make this fit somehow,” then buy something that isn’t right.

Hall is not one of those models who refuses to wear makeup when not working. She says she loves the stuff and wouldn’t dream of going out without dressing well and making up.

“I don’t even like my husband to see me without makeup,” she says.

As for aging, she has no intention of letting that hold her back.

“I don’t mind being an older model,” she says. “In fact, I like it. But I want to be able to hold my own in a show and keep updating my look.

“I think it’s a shame when older people let themselves go.”