Cirque Du Salahi: Be Careful Who You Trust (3 page)

Rosemary’s Catholic centered childhood had been entirely spent in one house in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Howard’s father, on the other hand, had been in the millinery business selling ladies’ hats and gloves, and often moved the family in pursuit of better sales. One of those stops was Scranton with its large population of Italians, Irish, Russians, and Poles. It seemed the perfect place for a man who sold the necessities of Catholic Church wear. Hats were mandatory church attire for females back then, and every stylish woman wore gloves to church. It was in Scranton that Rosemary and Howard met and fell in love. They were married on June 25
^th
, 1949.

“We thought we’d stop at just the two children,” Rosemary said. “But then we had Glenn and about a year after that I said to the doctor, ‘Oh, are you sure?’” when he announced she was expecting a fourth child, “and 17 months later, here came Michaele. She was quite a surprise!”

“She was always an extremely happy child,” Rosemary remembers today. “Michaele and Glenn were the closest in age and he was the boss over her. Glenn would decide when they would sit down to listen to a phonograph record and he would command his little sister, “No talk!” Rosemary remembers, “Michaele never objected. Whatever Glenn would say, Michaele would happily go along, crying out, ‘Me too, me too!’”

They enjoyed a stable middle class lifestyle. Michaele’s father, who was lovingly called “Mister” by everyone in the household, had dabbled in advertising for a while but spent most of his working career in the graphic art and printing business. Wife Rosemary took care of their household with four rambunctious children, and dedicated much of her time to the Catholic Church and its various charities.

“It was my mother who taught me the importance of charity to others,” Michaele says “and remembering those who are less fortunate. It was just something we did in our family.

In November of 1967, the family moved to Florida to the relatively new development of Domrich, located right outside of Orlando. Michaele’s father worked for the Rose Printing Company based in Tallahassee and he’d transferred there to be close to the Disney organization, one of his company’s most important customers.

The Holts managed to stay in Florida for a decade, but in 1977 another business transfer took the family to Oakton, Virginia. “It was kind of tough on Missy,” Rosemary said of her youngest daughter, “because she had to leave all her best friends behind in Florida. But she became the person at her new school who everybody knew. She just always had that outgoing, bubbly personality.” Michaele’s mother describes her as having been an average student, always more interested in socializing than in study.

In the sixth grade, at the Navy Elementary School, Michaele met Susan Dove. They soon became close friends. The pair were polar opposites when it came to scholastics, but both girls shared a love of current rock music—first and foremost, the band, Journey. “She liked Steve Perry especially,” Susan said. “I liked them all.

The two best friends made a teen pact to see as many of Journey’s live concerts as humanly possible. In the early 80s, the girls were still in junior high school when Journey hit its commercial peak with the
Escape
album. So they got their parent’s permission to go to their very first Journey concert. “I don’t remember all the details today,” Susan said, “but I remember our parents drove us up to Maryland to the old Capitol Center arena to see them. We were so excited!” They gleefully sang along with all of their signature songs, such as “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Open Arms,” and “Stone in Love.’

In 1984, Missy graduated from Oakton High School in Vienna, Virginia. Her yearbook page reveals that she had earned herself a new nickname: “Rock Chic Miss.” Michaele lived up to the image. She was always interested in fashion and design, and became active in the Future Business Leaders of America, the Modeling Club, the drama group, and even served as President of DECA, an international association for students interested in marketing, management and entrepreneurship. Her sponsor/teacher in DECA was Roger Poston, who wrote in Michaele’s yearbook, “Missy, It’s my pleasure to work with you this year. Keep your personality and your love of people. Life may not be ready for you but it had better
get
ready! You are one of the best.”

Howard Holt was seven years older than his wife, Rosemary, and when he retired at age 65 he wanted to return to Pennsylvania. His best friend, Jack, lived there and Howard wanted to move back “home.” Missy was in her early 20s and decided to move back with her parents. They settled into the community of Kingston and Michaele enrolled at a local Catholic college in nearby Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. King’s College was sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross and Michaele set about to further her education.

Problem was she wasn’t that interested.

Michaele divided her time between her job at a Mercedes dealership, her increasingly serious relationship with a popular local athlete named Eddie Gallis and an otherwise carefree life of a healthy young single woman. Higher education lost much of its appeal. “I loved the social aspects of college—but the studies? Not so much,” she says with a wry smile. She stuck with college for about a year, taking jobs to supplement her income. In addition to her work at the dealership, she managed to book occasional modeling jobs for local ads. When she read about a job opening at local radio station WKRZ, she rushed home to tell her mother about it.

“Mom, I’m going to apply for this job!” she said excitedly. And although her mother was consistently in her corner, Rosemary read the advertisement and said, “But Miss, you can’t type! It says right there, they want someone who can type.” But Michaele had already caught an encouraging glimpse of her immediate future; she never missed a beat. “I’ll just learn!” At the station a few days later, the effervescent twenty-one year old Michaele told the interviewer about her typing skills by admitting she couldn’t type at all. Then she smiled brightly and blithely answered, “Oh, I’m learning how…”

Self-confidence bulldozed the question of qualifications and the magic job applicant’s mix of enthusiasm and charm carried her. She got the job. Most notably, she accomplished it in spite of the fact that at this point in her life, she still travelled among the lesser of the camera’s Two Kinds: the not-blonde, those bearers of jealousy and resentment who live in torment because their hair will never overload a camera lens with reflected light simply because they laugh and toss their heads.

WKRZ personality Jeff Walker remembers her fondly. “She was a little bit like Jennifer, the receptionist on that old show,
WKRP in Cincinnati.
Michaele was always professional though, always at work and just the nicest, happiest small town girl.” Walker remembered her getting a few local modeling jobs, but “she really wasn’t a person who would seek the spotlight.” He was surprised when Michaele announced in March of 1989 that she had decided to enter the local Pennsylvania competition for the next year’s Miss USA crown. At that point she was twenty-three years old and still sporting a very nonblonde head of thick auburn colored hair.

She knew her parents couldn’t afford the gowns, the headshots and all the other things she needed to compete, so she got the radio station to sponsor her along with
The Times Leader
newspaper and a host of local businesses. She was listed as entrant #10 in the official pageant guidebook and her picture revealed a young woman wearing a checkered blazer, gold earrings and
dark
swept back hair.

She resembled a young Brooke Shields with her thick youthful eyebrows and flawless skin. Michaele didn’t win, but the experience helped her to polish vital meet-and-greet skills that she was going to need many times over in the future, far beyond the demands of local modeling jobs.

By the time the Miss USA people passed her over, she had already come to the attention of Absolut Vodka executive Michel Roux, a patron of the Wilkes-Barre Ballet. He picked her as one of two Miss Absolut Vodka Girls to appear at a gala event. One of the models was outfitted in a long extravagant silver dress valued at over $100,000 and emblazoned with the Absolut Logo. Michaele wore the same dress in a gold version, with a value reported by the local
Times Leader
on April 8, 1990, to be an astounding $532,000.

No doubt, either of the camera’s Two Kinds of people can agree that a half-million dollar dress is especially good attire for just about any woman. The accompanying photo of Roux flanked by the two young women is compelling. The reader’s eye goes directly to the exuberant Michaele, smiling broadly and looking off into the distance. “I remember there were, like, armed guards following us around that night” Michaele said of the evening. “Those dresses were that valuable.” On top of the thrill of wearing half a million bucks, she says the fact that she earned a whopping three thousand dollars for her work as the Absolut Vodka Girl was enough to cause a shift in her thinking.

“Why stay in college when I can earn money like this, doing something I love?”

Michaele would have to convince her then boyfriend, Eddie to go along with her career choice. Her parents adored him. He was the son of a local State Farm Insurance man and a popular star football player when they met. Eddie was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps in the insurance business, and that was okay with both of them. Michaele and Eddie were happy together, and seemed to be bound for the altar. Yet they ultimately drifted apart after a long eight year engagement when Eddie insisted that he needed to save more money and become more established in his business before getting married.

“I hadn’t wanted to get married right away,” Michaele said. “I was building my modeling career. But after seven, almost eight years, I thought now is the time to get married. When he said he needed still more time, it just broke my heart. I didn’t really know where my life would go at that point. So I decided to go after something I really loved, working in the beauty field doing makeup and fashion.”

Meanwhile, Michaele’s friend Susan was still in Virginia studying biology, but the two young women stayed in touch, even visiting each other’s homes on occasional weekends. Michaele found that once the idea of marriage was out of the question, she began to visit Virginia more often. Susan Dove’s parents were willing to take her in until she could get on her feet, so she ultimately made the decision to see what the future might hold for her back down there.

She moved in with Dove’s parents and landed a job at the upscale Nordstrom department store in Tysons Corner, working with Chanel as a salaried makeup artist. Her primary job was to work outside with clients who had fancy events to attend or who were posing for photographs. She immersed herself in her new job, learning all about new techniques and new products, and the best ways to use them. Her skill at finding the right makeup palette for wide variety of faces and skin tones began to persuade customers to hire her for private makeup applications. Meanwhile, she brought such effervescence to the workplace that she was appointed a Nordstrom Ambassador—a store cheerleader of sorts. It was a position she kept for the next decade. In contrast to erroneous reports that flooded the media about her years later, she was never a commissioned employee who stood behind the counter selling powder compacts and tubes of lipstick.

Not long after Michaele moved back to Virginia, Rosemary and “Mister” felt compelled to follow. They also wanted to lend moral support to their oldest son, Howard, who lived in Northern Virginia and was going through a divorce. Soon Michaele and her parents were all under one roof again. The living arrangement continued to work for them and Michaele would live at home with her parents until she was 35 years old.

Typically, it seemed everybody at the store loved Michaele for her boundless energy and willingness to help out. Over time, she added to her list of private customers. Among them: Former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson and her daughter, Lynda Bird Robb; Tipper Gore and her mother-in-law, Pauline Gore; and in the early 1990s Michaele describes herself as thrilled to be called to apply makeup for a news correspondent working at the White House. That day, after she was finished, Michaele stopped outside and had a friend take her picture. The photo shows her smiling proudly in front of the west portico, looking a lot less like her Miss USA Pennsylvania pageant photo and more like the brand new blonde Michaele who had finally found a direction for her life.

Not only was she a sought after young makeup artist, she was also picking up more modeling jobs. Her early modeling credits include the Swatch Watch Company, upscale department stores such as Garfinckel’s and Woodward & Lothrup, and several fashion and bridal magazine spreads. She later appeared as one of the primary models in the award winning ad campaign, “Meet Virginia.”

During this time, entrepreneur Trish McEvoy was in the early stages of launching her makeup line at Nordstrom stores. She was a keen businesswoman who knew a good employee when she saw one. When she noticed how well Michaele worked with customers, she convinced the store to let this go-getter come to work for her, helping her to build the Trish McEvoy brand. Michaele happily grabbed at the opportunity. Soon she found herself being dispatched to help set up McEvoy displays for stores in numerous out of state locations. She was excited by the new job and loved all the travel even though it was exhausting.