Mascara Wars: Hurley Wins, Crawford Loses

 

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It's a dog-eat-dog world once the catwalk's top models hit retirement age; around 30, a woman is seen as over the hill in mannequin land.

Not so for 35-year-old model-actress Elizabeth Hurley, who didn't even enter the world of modeling until she was nearly 30. Fashion Wire Daily announced Tuesday that Hurley's contract with Estée Lauder will be renewed to the tune of $3 million, despite earlier rumblings that the cosmetics giant was considering Oscar-winning babe Gwyneth Paltrow as a replacement for gossip girl Hurley, whose recent eyebrow-raising shenanigans are rumored to have upset the company.

Just two days earlier, various media outlets reported that Hurley is in talks to sign a $4 million-plus deal with the Scottish company that invented the cleavage-creating Ultimo gel bra. That deal would make the skimpily clad Hurley the world's highest-paid lingerie model and would give her more than $7 mil for one week's worth of wheeling and dealing.

Revlon Red Is Not Cindy's Color Former supermodel Cindy Crawford is finding that when it comes to hawking a cosmetics line, beauty is not more than skin deep. Crawford (with her famous mole) has served as Revlon's spokesmodel for 11 years, but when her contract is up in February, she won't be back.

Revlon's new president, Jeffrey Nugent, announced this week that Crawford's time was up, hinting to the public that the makeup firm was heading for a new look.

"They don't want the story out there that they're firing me because I'm too old," Crawford growled to columnist Jeannie Williams today. "That will alienate a lot of customers." Crawford is 34.

Once the world's highest-paid stick figure, Crawford is now frustrated that a company she was loyal to for most of her adult life has let her down. "I kind of knew what I needed [in order] to stay, financially," she told Williams. "I've been with them long enough that I feel either I'm doing a good job and you reward me for this, which is a raise, or I'm not, and you let me go."

Actress Melanie Griffith, 43, may also be in hot water with Revlon. Two weeks ago, claims surfaced that Griffith's Revlon contract is in jeopardy because of her recent admission to rehab.

A source close to Revlon, which hired Griffith to hawk its Age Defying foundation, told MSNBC columnist Jeannette Walls that the cosmetics corporation is "quite unhappy [about] this latest development."

A spokeswoman for Revlon would not comment on Griffith's drug problem, except to say, "We have a long-standing relationship with Melanie Griffith and respect her privacy at this time."