Gorgeous Portrait Photos of American Model Joan Olson in the 1950s

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Born in 1929 in Minneapolis, American model Joan Olson entered beauty contests which led to modeling gigs in LA when still in high school and later at USC. She was a princess in the Pasadena Rose Queen Royal Court and had to wear brown lipstick for TV and said it looked awful – this was the 40s, the technology was still pretty basic.

Joan Olson as a model in the 1950s

Her career was taking off, Olson dropped out of college and went first to New York, where she was with the Ford agency, and then to Paris. She mainly worked in photography, did not do much runway as she was 5’5” and so considered a ‘junior’.

“Many covers for US and French magazines, of which these from Seventeen are just a few. The photographer’s names I remember are Frank Scavullo, Art Kane, Ray Solowinski, Carmen Schiavone and Gene Heil in New York, André Ostier in Paris and Regi Relang in Munich.”

“Close friends of hers in the modeling profession included Tippi Hedren, Ivy Nicholson, Brynne Johnson, Barbara Stetson and June Ross. Helen Ryan, who shares one of the Seventeen covers with my mother, was my godmother. Two prominent photographers, Art Kane and Ray Solowinski, were respectively married to June Ross and Brynne Johnson.”

“Joan met my father, Charles Buchet, in 1952 in Capri. They married in Paris, with couturier Jacques Fath as best man. Shortly after I was born we moved to New York where we lived for 14 years and my 3 brothers were born. Our mother continued modeling through the 50s, although at a less frantic pace with 3 young children. When the 4th was born in 1959 she retired from the profession. Sadly Joan died in 1971, at age 42, all too young and so beautiful.” – Written by Joan Olson’s son, Charles Buchet.

These gorgeous photos are portrait of a young and beautiful Joan Olson as a model in the 1950s.