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Model and actress Carole Davis still exuded a youthful glow when she surfaced in Los Angeles this week at the age of 68.
Born in London, she launched her career in America by posing in girlie magazines, first Playboy in the 1970s and then Penthouse in the 1980s.
When she broke into acting, she worked with such directors as James Cameron and Garry Marshall and co-stars ranging from Matt Dillon to Kim Cattrall.
Perhaps her most famous role was on Sex and the City as Amalita Amalfi, a high-flying, flashily dressed socialite who refers to herself as a 'citizen of the world' and is described by Cynthia Nixon's Miranda as a 'hooker with a passport.'
In her later years she received a further dose of notoriety as the mother of Lauren Silverman, the fiancée of American Idol icon Simon Cowell.
When she was spotted this week in California, she was dressed for the heat in a sleeveless gingham dress that fluttered flatteringly around her hourglass figure.
Carole Davis (left) is pictured with Connie Lynn Hadden in a publicity still for the 1982 film Piranha II: The Spawning, which was James Cameron's feature directorial debut
Perhaps her most famous role was on Sex and the City as Amalita Amalfi, a high-flying, flashily dressed socialite who refers to herself as a 'citizen of the world'
In her later years she received a further dose of notoriety as the mother of Simon Cowell's fiancée Lauren Silverman; the mother and daughter are pictured in 2016 in London
Carole Raphaelle Davis was born in London to a French mother and an American father and enjoyed a cosmopolitan childhood that whisked her around the UK, France, Italy, Hawaii and even Thailand before she moved to New York in her teenage years.
Once she was ensconced in the United States, her ravishing looks and willingness to take her clothes off secured her a level of notoriety as a model.
By 1978 she had posed in Playboy, and two years later she was a Penthouse Pet of the Month under the assumed name of Tamara Kapitas.
She wafted around the art world of 1970s New York, getting photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe and socializing with Andy Warhol, she told Vogue.
Davis became an actress by accident when her friend auditioned to play 'a singer who could also speak Italian and sing opera - she flubbed it terribly,' she recalled.
As luck would have it, Davis had gone with her friend to the tryout, and the 'director came out and said: "You, you speak Italian, can you sing?," and my friend said: "Well, I’d rather you got it than someone I don’t even know."'
She promptly flew to Berlin to film what became her first picture, the 1981 comedy COD, with a cast that included the world famous porn star Ron Jeremy.
Next came Piranha II: The Spawning - the feature directorial debut of James Cameron - and Davis' acting career was off and running.
Among her pictures was Garry Marshall's 1984 romantic comedy The Flamingo Kid, starring Matt Dillon and featuring Davis as the pampered daughter of a pair of wealthy parvenus played by Jessica Walter and Richard Crenna.
In 1987 she chewed the scenery as the crazy ex-girlfriend of Andrew McCarthy's leading man in the cult classic fantasy comedy Mannequin
Davis, pictured in 1991, wafted around the art world of 1970s New York, getting photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe and socializing with Andy Warhol, she told Vogue
In 1987 she chewed the scenery as the crazy ex-girlfriend of Andrew McCarthy's leading man in the cult classic fantasy comedy Mannequin.
Her castmates included Estelle Getty, then at the peak of her fame on The Golden Girls, and Kim Cattrall, later a co-star of Davis' on Sex and the City.
Davis featured on season one of Sex and the City as Amalita Amalfi, the gaudy socialite who takes Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw under her wing.
Swathed in splashy designer apparel and flashing a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet she brags cost $12,000, Amalita enjoys a jet-setting lifestyle at the pleasure of the string of rich men she attaches herself to, hence Miranda's 'hooker with a passport' jibe.
Possibly buttressing Miranda's point, Amalita also matchmakes Carrie's one-night stand with a Frenchman who leaves her an envelope containing $1,000.
Amalita's episode, The Power of the Female Sex, was helmed by Susan Seidelman, who directed Madonna and Rosanna Arquette in Desperately Seeking Susan, as well as Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep in She-Devil.
Model and actress Carole Davis still exuded a youthful glow when she surfaced in Los Angeles this week at the age of 68
When she was spotted this week in California , she was dressed for the heat in a sleeveless gingham dressed that fluttered flatteringly around her hourglass figure
'I remember being madly in love with Susan Seidelman - she allowed me a kind of freedom,' Davis recalled years later. 'I felt alive. I felt like the bubbles in champagne.'
One of the lesser-known episodes in Davis' career was her co-writing credit on Prince's song Slow Love from his 1987 album Sign o' the Times.
Davis and her first husband Steven Davis share a daughter called Lauren Silverman, 48, who in 2021 got engaged to Simon Cowell, 66.
Lauren and Cowell's romance burst scandalously into the public eye in 2013 when they were photographed kissing on a yacht - while she was still married to his best friend at the time, Andrew Silverman.
Pouring fuel on the already explosive controversy, it emerged Lauren and Cowell conceived their son Eric, now 12, during her marriage to Andrew.
Meanwhile Carole and Steven Davis ultimately divorced and in the 1990s she exchanged vows with Saturday Night Live star Kevin Rooney, whom she remained with until he died in 2022 at the age of 71 of diabetes complications.
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