AWAY FROM IT ALL

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 2

AWAY FROM IT ALL

Model Retires To Jungle

[By SUSAN VAUGHAN] LONDON.

Few can resist beauty when it is allied to devilment. Colette Duval has displayed these qualities in abundance. I first came across her in 1955 at Perpignan-Labanier airport in France. She jumped from a Dakota at 18,500 ft, setting a new record for a French woman parachutist

But although this was the first time the public came to hear of her, she was by then already a veteran of 250 jumps. That however, was only her hobby: she earned her living as a fashion model. Soon she was something of a heroine in France. She was persuaded to stand for Parliament and rather fancied the job of being Minister for Youth and Sport But she was not elected. Joint Jump Her marriage to a French stock car driver, Gil Delamarre, received widespread attention, particularly when they made a joint parachute jump, holding hands. People outside France began to hear of her, too. She travelled widely. In Rio de Janeiro she dropped more than 39,000 ft from a Flying Fortress before opening her parachute at 800 ft a world free drop record at the time. In the celebrated LondonParis air race organised in 1959 she mustered all the resources of the French Air Force. She came second, although that did not seem to matter to the near-hysterical crowd that greeted her when she returned to Paris.

Then, in 1961, Colette and her husband parted. He joined a film company as a stunt adviser. It was not known where she went until recently when a news item came from Libreville, the capital of Gabon. Colette is living there in a pleasant bungalow, far away from it all. She still likes clothes, but she makes her own on a sewing machine. As for excitement. that seems to be over. She is still only 32; but some people seem to pack into a few years enough adventure for a lifetime.

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