Who's That Girl?

Twenty-year-old Naomi Campbell is the sexy, spunky sensation of the modeling world who commands $1 million a year and the attentions of men like Mike Tyson—and John Kennedy Jr. Now she's hoping to leap off the runway's and onto the charts with her debut album. BOB COLACELLO reports on this year's girl

She's a black Bardot, an African Marilyn, the Josephine Baker of the nineties. Half kitten, half tigress, sexy and innocent, a flower child in a career woman's body— and, boy, what a body. At twenty, Naomi Campbell, one of the world's top five models for almost five years now, is making the leap from the runway to the recording studio and from the fashion rags to the features mags. "When I was little," says the London-born daughter of Jamaican immigrants, "I'd say to my mum, 'Mum, don't worry, I promise not to let you down. I promise I'm gonna make something of myself.'"

Campbell studied ballet at the same London stage school that turned out Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, and it shows in the way she glides into the Royalton hotel for lunch, all grace and poise, even though she's forty-five minutes late. "Are you mad at me?" she asks so sweetly that suddenly I'm not. "Josephine Baker used to be late, too." She's wearing a white Azzedine Alai'a shirt over a black Azzedine bra, black Azzedine stretch pants, a Chanel chain belt and a Chanel chain bag with an Hermes scarf tied around it, Robert Lee Morris gold earrings, an old gold Rolex, three gold rings paveed in diamonds—said to be gifts from her "first love," Mike Tyson—and black Manolo Blahnik slipons with bunches of fake pearls at the toes. "I have ugly feet," she says. "Excuse me."

She was only sixteen, still in her school uniform of navy blazer and plaid kilt, when Beth Boldt, of the Elite agency, discovered her. Her rise since then has been phenomenal. Saint Laurent made her his Rive Gauche ad girl, then starred her in the award-winning Jazz TV campaign. She was the first black on the cover of French Vogue ever, and the first black on the cover of American Vogue's all-important September issue. She's also the first top black model with completely black features. As model agent Bethann Hardison puts it, "We can't deny she's beautiful, and we can't deny she's black." Her day rate starts at $7,000; her annual income is said to exceed $1 million.

"It's chic to be global," says journalist George Wayne. "And Naomi's got the whole nineties blend. She's got a Jamaican mother and a Chinese grandmother, she's European, she's American—she's it."

Apparently, he's not the only one who feels that way. Though she broke up last February with Tyson, whom she dated before and after his marriage to Robin Givens, the former heavyweight champion still calls. In April, she turned up at Swifty Lazar's Oscar party with Robert De Niro (and Toukie Smith caught the next flight out to the Coast). John Kennedy Jr. took her camera at a party at Rex, the Manhattan models' hangout, and teasingly refused to give it back. A few nights later, Viscount Linley sidled up to her table at Punsch and aske him a tour of downtown hot spots like the Time Cafe and the Building. At the big Nelson Mandela benefit in June, Eddie Murphy signed her program "Heaven," with an arrow pointing to his home phone number. And she wasn't even wearing the outrageously skimpy dress Azzedine Ala'ia had sent over from Paris especially for the occasion. "Azzedine's gonna kill me," she said, "but I couldn't wear that dress to meet Mandela. You could see big parts of my backside."

Naomi likes to sing during photo sessions, and early this year Virgin Records honcho Jeff Ayeroff, the man who has worked closely with Madonna, Neneh Cherry, and Paula Abdul, dropped by Herb Ritts's studio to hear her. Record producer Jellybean Benitez is now putting material together for Naomi's debut album, and she's taking singing lessons and lessons to Americanize her accent. "I think people are going to be surprised at how much vocal control she has," Benitez says. "I think she's going to be a major recording star," adds realtor Linda Stein, who is so enthusiastic that she's offered to return to music management and sign Naomi as her sole client. Meanwhile, Naomi's current MTV endorsement follows in the video steps Cher, Jesse Jackson, and Malcolm Forbes.

"I'm crazy about Naomi," says Vogue fashion director Grace Coddington. "She's fabulous, but maddening. Because she acts the role of what she thinks a superstar is.

She's always on five phones all at once— she's got Mike Tyson on one, Stallone on another, her mother on a third, some agent on the fourth, and her social secretary on yet another!"

Stallone? Yes, Stallone. After a Gianni Versace dinner at the Paris fall collections, he led a group to his favorite nightclub, Le Central, on the ChampsElysees, where he ordered jeroboams of champagne and pulled Naomi out onto the dance floor, then fell to his knees before her. Rocky and Tyson's ex. Rambo and the Caribbean princess. What could be more nineties?

"She's got a Jamaican mother and a Chinese grandmother, she's European, she's American— she's it."