Cayce Pollard (descriptive reference)

In Pattern Recognition Gibson describes Cayce using this reference,

"Pupils contracted painfully against sun−bright halogen, she squints into an actual mirror, canted against a gray all, awaiting hanging, wherein she sees a black−legged, disjointed puppet, sleep−hair poking up like a toilet brush. She grimaces at it, thinking for some reason of a boyfriend who'd insisted on comparing her to Helmut Newton's nude portrait of Jane Birkin."

Interestingly, I have not been able to verify a nude portrait of Jane Birkin by Helmut Newton.There are the famous, provocative shots of Birkin with Serge Gainsbour. And there are quite a few topless Birkins that are attributed to Newton, but the provenance of these is questionable. If anyone can confirm, please let me know. All things considered, I think this may have been the image (by David Bailey) that Cayce/Gibson was referencing:

After PR's publication Gibson mentioned in an interview, and subsequently on his blog, that he imagined Cayce looked something like British singer/songwriter Beth Orton:

"In one interview I said that I imagined Cayce looked something like Beth Orton. That was probably the result of having seen a photo of Beth Orton, not long before, and just then having imagined Cayce looking like that. Myself, I usually don't have any very clear sense of the features of my central characters."

 Here are a couple images of Beth Orton.

Definitely a resemblance.

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