Carol Alt credits SI Swimsuit for her 47-year successful modeling career

Carol Alt initially gawked at the idea of modeling a G-string for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

“There was a moment when [SI Swimsuit editor] Jule [Campbell] brought out a G-string,” Alt told Fox News Digital. “I looked at that G-string, and I was like, ‘There’s no way my dad’s going to let me do that! There’s no way. My father would kill me.”

“And she didn’t push me – Jule never pushed anybody to do anything they were uncomfortable with,” the supermodel shared. “She brought out some other bathing suits that were a little more demure that I felt more comfortable with.”

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It was another cover girl who convinced the pinup to strip down for the magazine.

“The magazine came out and I saw Ms. Christie Brinkley wearing that G-string [during] a sunset, sitting on the beach,” the star recalled. “And it was such a spectacular picture… Credit is due. Christie wore that bathing suit and it looked so beautiful. And the art, it was so artistic… I thought, ‘What am I doing? I should be celebrating the woman’s body.’ And it changed my mind on many things in my business.”

Alt, 64, is among the numerous supermodels who spoke out in a new documentary, “Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue.” Directed by Campbell’s daughter-in-law, Jill Campbell, it explores how the founding editor of SI Swimsuit transformed a struggling magazine into a media empire, all while discovering some of the most influential supermodels in the fashion industry.

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Campbell passed away in 2022 at age 96. Alt, the daughter of a fire chief, said it was the no-nonsense Campbell who inspired her to heat things up by stripping down.

“I came with my frilly white shirt up to here,” said Alt, pointing at her neck while chuckling. “[SI Swimsuit] did give me a little bit more spice, I have to say, in my career. But it was because I saw how beautiful it was. She never pushed me. Jule never pushed me, never, ever. I think in the end, I started pushing her, truthfully.”

Alt made her SI Swimsuit debut in 1981 in Florida, the outlet reported. She landed the cover a year later, after her photo shoot with John G. Zimmerman in Kenya.

“I was scared to death to meet Jule,” Alt admitted. “My agency wanted me to do Sports Illustrated. They sent me over to see Jule Campbell. And in her office, there’s all these pictures and all these covers… She took one look at me, and she said, ‘You look like Christie Brinkley, so I can’t really take you on Sports Illustrated Swimsuit,’ which was kind of a disappointment.”

Still, Campbell saw something in Alt, who was dubbed “The Face” of the fashion industry.

“[Jule] said, ‘I will take you on the Alaskan shoot,’” said Alt. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s cool too. I’ve never been to Alaska.’ That’s how I met Jule… In the beginning, she thought I looked too much like Christie Brinkley. And in the end, I ended up looking like me, and she ended up using me. And in my second year, I got the cover, so that was pretty quick. And it was all thanks to Jule. She championed me.”

Campbell joined the magazine during the dawn of the Twiggy era, The New York Times reported. The outlet noted that Campbell’s first cover, in late January 1965, featured 18-year-old Sue Peterson, sporting a nude body stocking and a white fishnet jumpsuit, among other pieces. Middle America “blew a gasket.”

“It’s really interesting from the lens of 2025 that she would receive death threats and criticism,” Jill told Fox News Digital. “Some people did not like seeing women in bathing suits in a sports magazine. And they would call it a male sports magazine. But during that time, there were so many women that enjoyed this magazine for the bathing suits. Even now, people comment on the gorgeous bathing suits and pictures.”

“She dealt with it because she didn’t feel like she was doing anything wrong,” Jill shared. “She didn’t feel like she was objectifying women. She was creating art. She was creating fashion. There were women in bathing suits in every other magazine that was on the market. There were beauty pageants. So why was she getting the wrath of this?”

“You could see in some of the interviews when she would get this criticism,” Jill continued. “She always did this eye roll because she was tired of it. She was a working woman. She just wanted to get her job done. She wasn’t trying to create Playboy and exploit anyone.”

Alt said that Campbell only worked with trusted photographers, and she was fiercely protective of her muses.

“One of the things Jule did to protect the girls was to step right in front of the photographer and pretend she was adjusting something, styling something, or moving a bathing suit,” said Alt. 

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“She would jump right in front… And it wasn’t really to edit something or style something. It was because maybe something got a little risqué or a bathing suit moved, and she went in there and protected us. And I think on some level, all of us knew that. That’s why we loved Jule so much.”

Dealing with “inappropriate behavior” wasn’t foreign to many models. But with Campbell, things were different, Alt stressed. On an SI Swimsuit set, the models were treated with respect and the photographers were “gentlemen.”

“It was everywhere,” she said about the challenges models endured outside of SI Swimsuit. 

“Whether you were going for a fitting and some guy tried to grope you, or you were on a shoot and some guy tried to break into your room. There was always an inappropriate something happening. But I always felt it was the way that you handled it and extracted yourself from the situation that made that a horrifying situation or just an anecdote in your life.”

“It was an anecdote in my life many times, but it never got to the point where it was a horrible situation because I was always able to maneuver myself out… Everybody dealt with it in the way that they knew best.”

“But Jule… she protected the girls, protected her job, and she gave them a beautiful magazine that became a complete brand,” said Alt. “That’s an amazing gift. She had that gift.”

Alt has zero regrets about modeling that G-string for the magazine. She said her appearance catapulted her to stardom, resulting in a successful career as an author and entrepreneur. At age 62, she walked the SI Swimsuit Runway Show at Miami Swim Week.

“I had people coming up to me and asking me if I was Carol Alt, not if I was that girl on the cover of a magazine,” said Alt. “[SI Swimsuit] was one of the building blocks of my career. And I’m still here 47 years later.”

“Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue” screens June 26 at New York City’s IFC Center.