Pearl of the Scandinavian beauty dynasty: Nena von Schlebrugge, mother of Uma Thurman

The name of this Scandinavian beauty may seem unfamiliar to you, but in the features of this elegant lady you will surely recognize her daughter-Uma Thurman. Nena von Schlebrugge was a very famous model in the 60s, and her pretty face appeared more than once in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar magazines.

In 1941, a daughter, Brigitte Karolin, was born in Mexico City to a Swedish woman, Birgit Holmqvist, and a German aristocrat, Baron Friedrich Karl von Schlebrugge.

From her mother, the daughter inherited an unusual appearance, and from her father — an aristocratic charm.

Nena's mother, Birgit Holmqvist, as a young woman posed nude for the famous sculptor Axel Ebbe for the statue "Embrace", depicting a naked diva. This quivering statue of 1930 still meets ships in the port of a small cape on the southernmost point of the Scandinavian Peninsula.

In 1955, the famous photographer Norman Parkinson, who worked at Vogue, went to Stockholm on official business. It was there that he saw 14-year-old Nena. This meeting was the beginning of the young beauty's modeling career. Just two years later, Nena moved to London, where she seriously took up work in the world of high fashion.

In the new field, the girl was waiting for a stunning success — the young Swede was immediately offered a contract with the Ford modeling agency, located in New York.

Nena gladly accepted the offer and went to another continent. There she was waiting for a collaboration with Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, she was photographed by the best photographers of the time-Richard Avedon, William Klein, Bert Stern and the already mentioned Norman Parkinson.

Photographers cultivated her aristocracy, sophistication, charm and trusted her to pose in the most stunning outfits and palace interiors, in which Nena looked organic and natural, as befits a real aristocrat by birth.

Nena's refined beauty has inspired many photographers and artists of our time. It is rumored that the girl became a muse for the great Salvador Dali, who in 1963 introduced the already well-known beauty to the psychiatrist Timothy Leary, who became famous for his work in the field of the effect of psychedelics on the nervous system.

Just a year later, Timothy and Nena were married at billionaire William Hitchcock's Millbrook mansion. This rather unusual wedding ceremony was captured on film by documentary filmmaker Donn Pennebaker.

Her marriage to Timothy Leary lasted only a year, and in 1965, Nena filed for divorce. Two years later, she married an even more extravagant man — Robert Thurman. Nena's husband became the first American to be tonsured as a Buddhist monk personally by the Dalai Lama.

It was a marriage sanctified by someone above — two harmonious souls merged together, who to this day live in peace and harmony and bring the divine light of kindness to people. Soon the couple had their first child, Ganden.

In total, from Robert Thurman, Nena has four children, among them-the famous actress Uma Thurman, who is very similar to her mother.

Uma was born in 1970. Her name means "bestower of bliss". Then Nena decided to end her career as a model and give herself to her family. In addition, she was so imbued with her husband's ideas that she also became interested in actively popularizing Buddhism in the States and even became a certified psychologist.

Today, Nena is the executive director of the Menla Mountain Retreat Center for Tibetan Medicine and is proud of her talented and successful children with unique names associated with the oldest Buddhist philosophy — Ganden, Uma, Dechen, Mipam. And she is still the same aristocrat-beautiful and just a happy woman.