Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult on HBO Max debuts 2 June – The HBO Original three-part documentary series Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult, directed and executive produced by Chris Smith (HBO’s Emmy®-winning 100 Foot Wave), debuts Tuesday, 2 June, only on HBO Max. Subsequent episodes will debut Tuesdays at the same time.
Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult chronicles Hoyt Richards, who, at 16 years old, meets an enigmatic Manhattan socialite on a Nantucket beach and is pulled into his spiritual group, Eternal Values. Soon after, Richards ascends to fame as one of the first male supermodels of the 1980s.
Eternal Values, the cult-like group, and its larger-than-life leader, Frederick Von Mierers, leveraged the glamorous world of 1980s New York to prey upon a community of young models and professionals, seducing them with his New Age cocktail of metaphysical and spiritual teachings and entangling them in a web of fabrication and exploitation.
Incorporating archival footage from the group’s public-access television shows, the documentary series reveals how its ideas were presented to a broader audience.
Former members describe how the group’s early emphasis on abstinence shifted over time, giving way to pressure to engage in sexual relationships while discouraging emotional intimacy that might threaten the group — an evolution that unfolded in the shadow of the AIDS crisis.
As these accounts deepen, questions also emerge about Von Mierers, including whether he was who he claimed to be.
Featured participants include former Eternal Values members Hoyt Richards, Paul Hinton, Dar Dixon and Elissa Melaragno; models Fabio Lanzoni, John Pearson andJacki Adams; modeling agents; family members of Richards; and archival footage of Frederick Von Mierers.
HBO Documentary Films presents Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult, a Library Films Production. Directed and executive produced by Chris Smith; executive producer, Ryann Fraser. For HBO: executive producers, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller and Sara Rodriguez.
HBO Original documentary series Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult debuts Tuesday, 2 June, only on HBO Max.
Media Release – HBO Max
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