Jordan: making it big in the fame game

THERE’S gold in them there hills.

We’ve already seen Dolly Parton turn breast implants, plastic surgery and a dumb-blonde image into one of the richest brands in the entertainment industry in the US.

Now, on this side of the pond, English glamour model Jordan is fast becoming her successor.

Since losing her job as a Page-Three model for getting her breasts enhanced — the Sun introduced a ‘natural’ policy — Jordan, or Katie Price, has been the subject persistent media ridicule.

She was quickly labelled as a half-wit and was happy to play along — and all the while her bank balance grew. But it is hard to reconcile that tag with her unquestionable business sense.

This year saw her hit the Sunday Times’ Rich List with a €44 million fortune.

Behind the caricature bimbo is a woman who in the last three years has published five books; two autobiographies, two adult paperback fiction novels and a children’s book on how to care for ponies.

Her two autobiographies alone sold more than 800,000 copies. Her second adult novel, Crystal, was published this week. This came about as a part of €6m three-book publishing deal she signed with printing giant Random House.

While Dolly is blessed with a show-stealing voice, Jordan — despite extensive voice training — is not. This has not stopped her landing a recording deal and releasing a charity album of duets for last year’s Christmas market.

One of her most glaring incidents was in attempting to qualify for the Eurovision, dubiously performing in a pink cat-suit while visibly pregnant. The audience laughed, but the 29-year-old is nobody’s fool.

She has successfully honed the Parton business model and mixed it with the Richard Branson school of brand recognition.

Where Branson emblazoned his Virgin tag on everything from planes to compact discs the Jordan label is now applied to jewellery, lingerie, children’s clothing and perfume, hair products, make-up, a bedding range, toys and dolls.

Since 2004, when she left her topless-modeling career behind, her stock has been rising steadily.

Back then she made her headline-catching appearance on the jungle based reality television show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

During the show she hit it off with the by-then struggling Australian pop-star Peter Andre.

The two quickly got married with wedding pictures that were a clear parody on the prince and princess image they had sold to the glossy magazines. The pair are expecting their second — Jordan’s third — child this summer.

Her high-profile parenting role and the blindness suffered by first-born Harvey won her the accolade Celebrity Mom of the Year last April.

Yet, despite treating her image with apparent reckless abandon she has managed to consistently court new markets without losing her old fan-base.

More than 10 years after she debuted topless on page three of the Sun she was this month again included in the top 100 women list compiled by Askmen.com.

The world’s largest male orientated internet portal site ranked her 81st — 10 places higher than where she was two years ago.

Its synopsis of her appeal captures in a nutshell the symbiotic relationship between the Brighton-born glamour model and ordinarily fleeting British lad-culture.

“Katie Price, aka Jordan, has proven once again that the right physical dimensions and an unabashed willingness to flaunt, tease and strip for the camera are all that’s required to achieve fame and fortune. Following in the footsteps of other aspirant British girls determined not to let a lack of talent impede the way to stardom.”

She has since become a staple of British tabloids, only now she makes headlines rather than simply posing next to them.

However, Askmen.com’s assessment of Ms Price sells her short.

Despite appearing on the front cover of Cosmopolitan magazine last April she no longer uses her looks or so-called sex appeal to make her millions.

Instead, she is selling what is even more unique — her bizarre lifestyle.

She has been the feature of four documentaries and a host of reality television series mostly focusing on her life with new husband Peter Andre.

The titles of the documentaries tell a lot about her pitch to the market and her role as standard-bearer for those celebrities famous for being famous.

Jordan: Living without Fame, Jordan: The Truth About Me, Jordan: The Model Mum and Jordan: You Don’t Even Know Me.

And this year promises to be even better than the last for her bank balance.

Herself and Andre have signed a deal to host their own chat-show on ITV and a reality show involving the pair is being sold to American cable channels.

Naysayers have consistently been waiting for the Dolly Parton bubble to burst but she keeps thriving, to the extent she now owns her own theme park and her fan-base is growing.

Similarly the knives have long been out for Katie Price. However, the last 10 years should have taught us that this glamour model is not a one-trick pony.