Eighties supermodel-turned-actress Carol Alt is lending her name to a campaign to rescue the ailing gay partner of the late fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo from poverty.
The Queens-born Alt, dubbed “The Face” by Life magazine for her ad contracts with Diet Pepsi, General Motors, Cover Girl Cosmetics and Hanes, saw a Post article about a bitter court battle between Scavullo’s family and the lensman’s former assistant, Sean Byrnes.
“Sean was everything to Francesco. He chose the girls, he ran the studio, he did the styling,” Alt said.
She called it an “injustice” that Byrnes, Scavullo’s creative partner, has been denied profits from his lover’s $1.5 million estate because of a muddled interpretation of the will.
The bulk of Scavullo’s estate is his archives — images of a nude Burt Reynolds, Andy Warhol wearing a Rolex, and Cosmo covers of models such as Brooke Shields. But the executors — Scavullo’s niece Angela Scott and friend Michael Horowitz — are refusing to turn over the trove to Byrnes, 61.
The executors have insisted in legal documents that the artist intended for Byrnes to benefit from the archives only through payments from a trust.
“It was Sean’s archives, too,” Alt said. “When you work with someone for that long, naturally you share everything.”
After Scavullo died in 2004, Byrnes fell into a deep depression and nearly landed in a state facility before his Brooklyn sister dipped into her retirement fund to help him, the shutterbug’s former agent told The Post.
Scavullo’s agent, Elaine Korn, is rallying a list of boldface names to support Byrnes’ court case.
She hopes the celebrities, some of whom Scavullo and Byrnes helped gain fame, will speak out in Byrnes’ defense. The list includes Blondie’s Debbie Harry, actress Rene Russo, publishing heiress Anne Hearst and supermodel Naomi Campbell. Scott and her attorney did not return calls for comment.
“What happened after Francesco died is an abomination and to me,” said Korn.
Korn also fears that Scavullo, who reached the height of his success in the 1980s, will fall into obscurity if his archives continue to sit in storage as the court fight drags on.
“This has stunted the legacy of his estate,” Korn said, adding that she got calls from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the printing house Duggal to exhibit Scavullo’s work. But the trustees have never acted on the requests.