Facts about Jennifer Joseph
Jennifer Joseph Biography
Jennifer Joseph isn’t a household name, but as the model for the Columbia Pictures logo — the draped lady holding a torch — her likeness is seen by millions of moviegoers every year.
New Orleans artist Michael Deas was commissioned to update the famous Columbia logo after Sony Pictures Entertainment bought the studio in 1989. Older versions of the logo — a woman in a draped gown, standing atop a pedestal and holding a torch aloft — had been in use since the 1930s.
Jennifer Joseph, at the time a 31 year-old designer with The Times-Picayune newspaper, modeled for Deas. The resulting image was not an exact likeness of Joseph; Deas used computer-generated images to construct a composite for the face. Deas delivered the logo in 1992 and it went into use for Columbia Pictures productions, cementing Joseph’s place in history.
Jennifer Joseph herself later became a muralist in Houston, Texas.
Extra credit
Actress Annette Bening told movie critic Roger Ebert in 2004 that she had been told she was the model for the logo, but artist Michael Deas has said that wasn’t the case… Jenny Joseph is also the name of the English poet who wrote “Warning,” a short poem with the famous line “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple.” The two Josephs are not related.