Dirty secrets of the supermodels

Queens of the runway and the elite world of glossy magazines, they famously didn’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day. Now the former glamazons of the 1970s and 1980s give a behind-the-scenes look into their dazzling domain in the upcoming HBO documentary “About Face: Supermodels, Then and Now,” airing July 30. Here, they talk about self-esteem, the cult of youth, drugs, beauty as a commodity — and the reinvention that can come with aging.

PAULINA PORIZKOVA, 47

Then: Signed a $6 million deal in 1988 with Estée Lauder, then the highest-paying modeling contract in the world.

Now: Author and blogger, lives in NYC with husband Ric Ocasek, of rock band the Cars, and their two kids.

PRESSURES AND INSECURITY

“I don’t think there is any 15-year-old girl who will turn down the chance to be called beautiful. You don’t realize at that point that you’re [also] going to get called ugly. They [the editors] would open my portfolio and start discussing me. ‘Good nose, but what are we going to do about those teeth?’ ‘Don’t worry, don’t make her open her mouth’. ‘I don’t like the color of her hair!’ Every job felt like it was going to be my last.”

SEX ON THE JOB

“What people called sexual harassment, we called compliments. If a 16-year-old is kind of flattered by a man pulling out his penis in front of her, that’s kind of noteworthy.”

BEING 24

“I don’t really know how one day it happened and I thought: ‘Y’know what? I deserve to be called beautiful.’ That thought probably didn’t come to me until about two years ago when I looked at old pictures of myself [at 24] and thought: ‘Damn, I was good-looking!’ I look back at my body now and think, ‘I should have been naked [then] all the time!’

THE DARK SIDE OF THE JET SET LIFE

GIRL INTERRUPTED

JERRY HALL, 56

Then: Scored more than 40 magazine covers by 1977, including French Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Danced in then-fiancé Bryan Ferry’s 1976 music video “Let’s Stick Together.”

Now: A stage actress and face of Invisible Zinc sun care with daughter Georgia May Jagger, 20, one of her four kids by former lover Mick Jagger, lives in Richmond, England.

PLASTIC SURGERY

“I think it’s bad that we have as role models people who look scary to young children. They’re cutting up their faces. Their ears have gone weird. They take fat from their bottoms and stick it in their lips so when you kiss them, you’re kissing their bottom — that is so disgusting!”

GETTING OLD

“Of course, it’s no fun getting old and sick and dying. We all know that’s coming, and it’s a bore. But people are living longer, they are healthier longer, they have sex longer; why shouldn’t we be allowed to age and why shouldn’t we be respected for it? When I turned 50, I felt a sense of achievement. I’ve lived 50 years! I made it! The other thing about getting older is that you can be a little bit more eccentric. People will let you sleep late, go around in your lingerie.”

BEVERLY JOHNSON, 59

Then: The first black woman to appear on the cover of Vogue, in 1974.

Now: Launched her own hair and beauty-product line and appears with her daughter, plus-size model Anansa Sims, 28, in the OWN reality-TV series “Beverly’s Full House,” filmed in her home in California.

THE WORSHIP OF YOUTH

“When I was modeling, the career lasted between three and five years. That was your entire career. And it was frightening. I remember my girlfriend, she was graduating from college and getting married and putting the down payment on a house. Women [my peers] were maturing and [being] happy. Here I was, in fear, supposedly living this glamorous life [yet] I’m crippled with the idea of: ‘I’m growing old and where do I go next?’ The whole age thing in [the modeling] industry, it’s everything.”

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI, 60

Then: Actress, daughter of Swedish movie star Ingrid Bergman and film director, Roberto Rossellini, had a 14-year tenure with Lancome until 1996.

Now: Directs and appears in short independent films, activist and conservationist, part-time resident of Bellport, LI.

AGING

“For sure, my social status has diminished because I know I’m not invited to the A-list parties any more. My daughter [model, Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, 28] is. What has completely disappeared from society is the wisdom of the old people. As you grow old, you don’t count any- more, and that is, I think, the greatest fear about growing old. ”

SELF-ACCEPTANCE

“Mama [Bergman] told me once that growing old is the only way to have a long life and she’d rather have that. She didn’t seem to be that affected by old age and maybe that’s another reason why I don’t feel that affected by it, either.”

PAT CLEVELAND, 60

Then: Caused an international sensation in 1973 as the mixed-race Halston muse who twirled down the runway in Versailles, France, with exotic hand movements.

Now: TV fashion commentator, published poet, raw food enthusiast and mom of model daughter, Anna, 23, lives in south New Jersey.

DRUGS

“People needed more energy. They wanted to work and they wanted to play and the drugs gave people more energy. It’s like any infiltration into a cell — it comes in and it goes out — and some people didn’t know how to let it go. They fell in the pit. Everybody used it. The point is not to get hooked on anything. You can try something, but don’t let it take over. Moderation in all things. It depends where you are, like in Europe, people drink wine but, over here [in the US], if you drank that much wine, you would be considered an alcoholic. [Drugs] were not considered bad at that time. It was considered chic.”

DISILLUSIONMENT

“I started seeing everybody dressed in black and they were disappearing. And I knew it was the end of the time. I said: ‘I am leaving. I’m going to do some normal things for a while because this is going down the drain.’ When people start buying bottles of quaaludes from China — like a gallon-size — you know there’s something wrong. I could jump out of the limo and say to my friend: ‘I’m never going to see you again because you take too many pills.’ You can warn them but they won’t listen.”

KIM ALEXIS, 52

Then: Replaced Lauren Hutton in 1983 as the face of Revlon’s Ultima II collection

Now: Mom-of-five, lives in northern Florida with second husband (former NHL player Ron Duguay), author, TV personality, health advocate and speaker.

SURGERY

“I can’t imagine pulling and cutting my skin. If you look at some of these actresses out in Hollywood and they’ve really messed their faces up. I haven’t even done Botox. The makeup artist will say: ‘I can tell you haven’t done Botox by the texture of your skin, because, after the Botox wears off, it changes the muscle structure of your skin composition and makes it lay different.’ I’ve not done anything of it. Not a lip filling. I am aging. Yes, I have wrinkles. Yes, I have brown spots, but I don’t find them offensive. People drink too much coffee and it ages you. But people don’t want to hear it. I don’t drink alcohol. They [other people] like living their lives and fixing it further down the line, but I don’t like living that way.”