Sterling St. Jacques

Sterling St. Jacques (October 12, 1957 – July 14, 1992) was an American model, dancer, actor, and singer who became known as "Swirling Sterling" and has been described as the first black male supermodel. Born in a city outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, he never knew his biological parents and frequently ran away as a child. His family relocated to Connecticut before returning to Salt Lake City, where he attended Oquirrh School. As a teenager, he was adopted by actor Raymond St. Jacques, who is noted as the first African-American to portray a cowboy on television. St. Jacques later credited his adoptive father with redirecting his life. His mother, Nina Hobbs, had sung with jazz bandleaders Count Basie and Duke Ellington. During his high school years in Hollywood, St. Jacques played basketball and attended school alongside Lorna Luft, daughter of actress Judy Garland.

St. Jacques pursued a career in entertainment following his father's example, and the two were recognized for their shared fashion sense in the early 1970s. Before Raymond St. Jacques helped him secure a role as a background dancer on the television series Laugh-In, Sterling had worked as a dancer at Disneyland. He subsequently moved to New York to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, supporting himself through part-time modeling work. His modeling career gained early visibility when he appeared in the July 1970 issue of Vogue magazine modeling Japanese robes, and in 1971 he was photographed by Horst P. Horst alongside Italian actress Silvana Mangano and French writer François-Marie Banier for the catalog of a New York modeling agency. He also appeared in the 1973 film Book of Numbers, which was produced and directed by his father.

St. Jacques made his Broadway debut in 1973 in The Merchant of Venice. That same year, he appeared on Broadway in Let My People Come, a sexually explicit play that ran at the Morosco Theater, where he and model Pat Cleveland performed together. The show closed after 108 performances, all of them previews. During an intermission in September 1976, St. Jacques was arrested on a third-degree larceny charge for allegedly stealing one thousand dollars worth of jewelry from a former girlfriend, Juliet Baruch.

His rise to prominence in New York society accelerated in April 1976, when French designer Hubert de Givenchy selected him to model his menswear line at the Waldorf-Astoria. Bernadine Morris of The New York Times reviewed the show and compared St. Jacques to dancer Fred Astaire. The appearance drew considerable attention from wealthy socialites who sought to dance with him at discotheques. In June 1976, he was photographed dancing with Jackie Kennedy Onassis at a benefit for the Special Olympics held at the Pierre Hotel, and he told Sepia magazine that the two were close friends, crediting himself with helping her become more comfortable on the dance floor.

St. Jacques and Pat Cleveland, to whom he was engaged, became a celebrated dancing duo, drawing inspiration from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to revive 1940s elegance. Cleveland wrote in her memoir Walking with the Muses that they met at New York's Hurrah nightclub in 1976, though earlier reports had placed their first meeting in Paris in 1973. The two appeared on the television program Soul Train and performed at Lincoln Center for a benefit. Cleveland later stated that their relationship ended after a year due to St. Jacques' preference for men.

By the late 1970s, St. Jacques was a fixture at Studio 54, where he was frequently photographed dancing with celebrities including Bianca Jagger, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, and Caroline Kennedy. His social circle included Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell, artist Andy Warhol, and fashion designer Halston. His dancing was reportedly the inspiration for the 1979 Sister Sledge hit "He's the Greatest Dancer."

In the early 1980s, St. Jacques relocated to Europe and pursued a career as an Italo disco singer with moderate success. He released a self-titled album in 1980 on Dig-It International Records, along with a series of singles between 1980 and 1984, including releases on Polydor and Papillon Records. Titles among his singles included "Again," "Muscle Man," "Tutto È Blu (Blue)," "Des Mots Pour Toi," and "Mister Moonlight." A 1988 interview with the Chicago Tribune quoted Raymond St. Jacques stating that Sterling had a television show in Düsseldorf. Raymond St. Jacques' will, stipulated in October 1988, left Sterling the sum of one dollar, as reported in 1991. St. Jacques died on July 14, 1992, at the age of 42. His former fiancée Pat Cleveland stated that he died of complications from HIV/AIDS, though his death was never officially confirmed.