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28/04/2005: "COVER GIRL QUEEN"

At one time two of the most beautiful girls in Sydney lived almost next door to each other at Darling Point, Sydney.

One was Valli Kemp, an out-spoken runner-up in the Miss World competition, the other Jackie Hickmott who many thought could have won if she'd entered. Their third friend and dancer was blond Jenny Wallace, pictured at top right.

Jackie was daughter of a showgirl mother, who introduced her to professional dancing from age three and was in her teens a star at the Latin Quarter in Pitt Street, Sydney - a social nightspot for celebrities.

For a time I was a regular patron and possibly the only guy admitted to the girl's dressing room upstairs, it was said. A photographers perk? About 13 dancers worked there - each had a fasinating story and stunning figure. Most married music men and had unhappy lives.

I was always too poor for champagne and instead, like most others, drank bottled beer kept chilled in an ice bucket.

I'd sit up the back in a dark corner with my girlfriend - Jackie was her best friend.

In her late teens and twenties Jackie Hickmott became possibly being the most published cover model in Australia. Then suddenly she gave it all away, left Australia and married an international music man, to live in Ireland and USA. I visited her near San Francisco once when she lived on an apple farm.

In Australia Jackie did not take to the cool (and then) sewage polluted underwater world off Sydney.

The closest she came to marine modeling was in a wetsuit at Taronga Park Zoo, where she and another stunning girl swam with the captive dolphins for us. It was recorded on 16mm for the documentary Aquarius.

Today she is an Australian version of Brigitte Bardot with her love for helping animals on her property dedicated to their welfare.