Who

All-American supermodel Christie Brinkley was Billy Joel's original Uptown Girl. She's also the jilted ex-wife of Peter Cook.

Backstory

The California-bred Brinkley (then known as Christie Lee Hudson) was 18 when she moved to Paris to pursue a modeling a career. Ford immediately signed her up and she became one of the most popular models of the early '80s. She graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue three times in a row, became the face of Cover Girl, and hawked everything from Diet Coke to Clairol.

As her youthful looks turned into middle-aged wrinkles, she cashed in on the infomercial circuit, shilling for Total Gym fitness machines alongside martial-arts demigod Chuck Norris. She also tried her hand at TV and film, with decidedly mixed results—her lifestyle show Living in the '90s was cancelled after less than a year, and her movie career was limited to a couple appearances as Chevy Chase's crush in National Lampoon's Vacation and Vegas Vacation. (To date, her finest dramatic performances have been in Billy Joel videos.) In recent years, she's spent her time on a number of standard-issue ex-supermodel pursuits—writing fitness books, launching a perfume, designing sunglasses and toddler toys, and dabbling in political activism.

Personal

Brinkley has been down the aisle—and back to the courthouse—four times. She and her first husband, Jean-François Allaux, divorced in 1981. Her second marriage, to Billy Joel, inspired fan favorites like "Uptown Girl" and "A Matter of Trust," and ended in 1994, but not before she gave birth to a daughter, Alexa Ray. Brinkley's second child, Jack Paris, came with third husband Richard Taubman, to whom she was married for only a year. She married architect and former model Peter Cook in 1996, and had daughter Sailor Lee in 1998, but that relationship spectacularly imploded after a decade.

Drama

During the summer of 2006, Brinkley's marriage to Cook dissolved when the stepfather of Cook's 18-year-old assistant, Diana Bianchi, tipped Brinkley off that the two were having an affair. Their 2008 divorce trial brought to light a number of salacious details, including Peter's $3000-a-month porn habit and penchant for swingers websites. Christie got the better end of the settlement, winning sole custody of the couple's kids (Cook had adopted Jack Paris) as well as possession of $60 million in property; Cook walked away with just $2.1 million.

Habitat

Brinkley and Cook bought a six-bedroom Greek Revival-style waterfront home in Sag Harbor for $13 million in 2003, but they've never lived there and put it back on the market when their marriage fell apart. In July 2007, she bought a 2.6 acre North Haven home with a private beach for $10.995 million.

Close call

In 1994, she and her future third husband, Richard Taubman, narrowly escaped death when their helicopter crashed near Telluride, Colorado. They married near the spot of the crash nine months later.