Elle: Reflection of Our Times?

Is Carla Hall, author of the Elle Macpherson profile (“The Supermodel Who Survived Hollywood,” Sept. 21) also the model’s publicist? If not, Macpherson should retain her straightaway for producing that extraordinary piece of sycophantic puffery.

Would it have embarrassed Hall to ask her subject a question of substance? For instance, just what are Macpherson’s thoughts on the young women who have ruined their lives in pursuit of becoming the next Elle, or simply looking like her? Would such questions have destroyed the ambience of the breaded veal dinner they shared?

Macpherson and her supermodel ilk are fortunate to live in a materialistic, narcissistic world ob- sessed with sex, fashion and celebrity. The world, of course, has always been kind to the beautiful, but perhaps never more so than now, when a model can fetch $100,000 a day posing for pictures.

Brett M. Barber

Irvine

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Excuse me, but did you err in writing the headline for the cover article about Macpherson? It seems to me that having a surprise pregnancy out of wedlock and not knowing whether she will get married prior to delivery is rather typical Hollywood. If she had followed the usual, more conservative rules of social conduct, then you might say she survived Hollywood.

Dr. Michael A. Glueck

Newport Beach