Nena von Schlebrügge

About Nena von Schlebrügge

Who is it?: Former Model
Birth Day: January 08, 1941
Birth Place: Mexico City, Mexico, Mexican
Birth Sign: Aquarius
Occupation: Fashion model
Spouse(s): Timothy Leary (m. 1964; div. 1965) Robert Thurman (m. 1967)
Children: 4, including Uma Thurman

Nena von Schlebrügge Net Worth

Nena von Schlebrügge was born on January 08, 1941 in Mexico City, Mexico, Mexican, is Former Model. Nena von Schlebrügge is a Mexican-American yesteryear high-fashion model and psychotherapist who presently serves as Managing Director of Menla Mountain Retreat. This famous model of the 1950s and 1960s is however more familiar to the present generation as mother of renowned American actress and model, Uma Thurman. She was discovered by photographer Norman Parkinson from Vogue in her early teens that led her to the world of high-fashion modelling. She first relocated to London where she garnered quick success and then furthered her modelling career in the US as one of the top models. She worked with ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ and ‘Vogue’ and posed for some of the best fashion photographers of those times. After her first marriage with Timothy Leary failed, she married Robert Thurman and eventually gave up her modelling career to devote time for family. Her acting endeavours include working in films like ‘Ciao! Manhattan’ and ‘Julian Po’, and TV series ‘Arena’. With time she became an active promoter of Buddhism in the US. She served as Managing Director of Tibet House US and Program Director at the New York Open Center and currently works for ‘Menla Mountain Retreat’ as its Managing Director.
Nena von Schlebrügge is a member of Models

💰 Net worth: Under Review

Some Nena von Schlebrügge images

Biography/Timeline

1911

Nena von Schlebrügge was born in Mexico City, Mexico. She is the daughter of a Swedish mother, Birgit Holmquist (1911–1973), and a German father, Colonel Baron Friedrich Karl Johannes von Schlebrügge (1886–1954), a German monarchist and cavalry officer in World War I who became a businessman during the 1920s and 1930s in Berlin. During World War II, he was jailed by the National Socialists for refusing to rejoin the military and for protecting Jewish friends. Birgit Holmquist married him in jail and used her Swedish national privilege to get him out; the couple fled to Mexico, where Nena and her brother Björn were born.

1930

Von Schlebrügge's maternal grandmother's parents were German and Danish. Her mother had served as se:Axel Ebbe's model for Famntaget ("The Embrace"), a 1930s statue of a nude woman that overlooks the harbor of Smygehuk in Sweden. On her father's side, she has an older half-sister, who was the paternal grandmother of German-Swedish football player Max von Schlebrügge.

1955

In 1955 at the age of 14, Nena was discovered by Vogue Photographer Norman Parkinson when he was on a tour in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1957, Nena moved to London, England, to pursue a career in high-fashion modeling. She found immediate success and was invited to come to New York City by Eileen Ford of the Ford Modeling Agency to continue her modelling career.

1958

In the snow storm of March 1958, at the age of 17, she arrived in New York City on the Queen Mary. In New York City, she continued her career as a top model, working at Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. She was photographed by many fashion Photographers, including Gleb Derujinsky.

1964

Nena married Timothy Leary in 1964 at the Hitchcock Estate (commonly known as "Millbrook"). D. A. Pennebaker documented the event in his short film You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You. Charles Mingus played piano at the wedding ceremony. The marriage lasted a year before von Schlebrügge divorced Leary in 1965. In 1967 she married Indo-Tibetan Buddhist scholar and ex-monk Robert Thurman, whom she had met at Millbrook. In the same year, Nena and Robert's first child, Ganden Thurman, was born. In 1970, Robert and Nena's second child, Uma Thurman, was born. They have two more sons: Dechen (b. 1973) and Mipam (b. 1978). The children grew up in Woodstock, NY, where the Thurmans had bought nine acres of land with a small inheritance Nena had received. The Thurmans built their own house there. In addition to their four children, the pair has seven grandchildren.

1967

In 1967, she had a part in the Edie Sedgwick film Ciao! Manhattan. The film took four years to make; and drastic changes from the original story were made, causing the filmmakers to remove many scenes, including Nena's, shot in 1967. These deleted scenes can be found on the DVD version.

1987

From 1987 to 1989, Nena was the Program Director at the New York Open Center and, from 1991 to 2002, was the Managing Director of Tibet House U.S. located in New York City. The Tibet House had been founded in 1986 by the Thurmans, Philip Glass, and Richard Gere, at the behest of the Dalai Lama. Nena oversaw the construction of Tibet House, the educational programming, and, with Philip Glass, initiated the annual benefit concert at Carnegie Hall, as well as the annual benefit auction at Christie's.

2001

Since 2001, Nena has been the Managing Director of the Tibet House-owned Menla Mountain Retreat, where she has overseen the construction of a state-of-the-art Tibetan medicinal spa facility and Business in the Catskill Mountains in Phoenicia, New York. She is also a psychotherapist.