DRIVING LILLIAN BACH

HOW I LAUNCHED LILLIAN BACH. By Bob Ejike 

 

The Characteristic nostalgia that accompanies the arrival of summer in Europe had just

begun to take root in July 1995 when my manager, Pierino (who apart from controlling

some celebrated rock groups, ran one of the most successful modeling agencies in Milan) asked me if I could help him find a good mulatto model from Nigeria since he had exhausted his search in Italy without getting exactly what he wanted. I picked up the flight ticket with enthusiasm and within one week I was back home in Lagos. I visited all the reputable modeling agencies in town, albeit unsuccessful, most of the models here could use a gym and a strict vegetarian diet for 365 days.

Finally, I reluctantly gave up, concentrating my energy on collecting paintings and craft for the annual Gik Exhibition of Nigerian Arts and Culture in Milan. It was in

one of these fine arts depots that I found Lillian Bach – slim chocolate-complexioned

lady of astonishing beauty. From her gait, motion and charisma, I knew she was a

professional model and that I have found Perino’s treasure. Unknown to me, I was in for a surprise. Lillian Bach was not leaving Nigeria for anywhere. Fancy a model who would

not go to Milan.

Lillian Bach was born on November 9. 1970 at Island Maternity Hospital, Lagos,

to a Nigerian mother and a Polish father, Mr. Bach, who was a mechanical engineer

working for Overseas Construction Company, (presently known as Habour Work

Limited). Unfortunately he fell ill and was rushed to Holland, and that was the last thing Lillian knew about her father.

Shortly after education at Idi-Araba High School, she plunged into the world of modeling, not only she was aware of her beauty and talent, but also because she felt the

charitable need to support her mother and other members of her family. She soon became the breadwinner. With her looks, on-the-job training, natural talent and discipline, Miss Bach has been able to register her timbre on the Nigerian modeling and fashion industry as one of the few professionals who make their living almost exclusively from modeling. Although, I have known Lillian for more than eight years, I still needed to spend three weeks with her, taking her from audition to shooting location, to appreciate the pressures that models can be under. Every single day of the three weeks I had to drive Miss Bach to at least ten advertising agencies. Her basic compulsion was the love for photography. “I like taking photographs and I love what I see in the pictures. I love what I look like, you know I like to change my looks too, maybe when I’m wearing a different hairstyle and a different makeup, I would want to take a photography and see what I look

like”.

‘So you realize that you are a very beautiful lady?’ I inquire jokingly. Miss Bach

chuckles, ‘people say that I don’t know’. Her modesty is overwhelming. Besides sheer

beauty, she is photogenic, which is why the photo-modeling agencies find her irresistible.

Lillian once complained about the yardstick for beauty in Africa.

‘What is considered beautiful here in Africa is not what they count as beauty

elsewhere, maybe that’s why I don’t see myself as being beautiful because what we count as beautiful here is when you’re on the fat side. If don’t have flesh, you are not beautiful here’ pointing a finger at her skinny, ebony black mother.

They both exchange happy glances, making her effeminately furnished sitting room

somewhat warm. I suggested that since her schedule was full, it was implicit that some

people thought she was pretty enough to project their company’s products. That was

before she augmented her weight by eating all kinds of fatty foods. Another complex of reality of Nigerian modeling is that the more popular the model gets, the less jobs come her way. The opposite is the case in nations were modeling is well established.

Lillian Bola Bach has appeared in calendar for P/Z., G.M. Motors, Guinness, Soft

Touch Beauty Products, Delta Soap, Collectibles etc. she has done fashion shows for

Aroya Courtoun, a French fashion house in Paris and many magazine covers and T.V

commercials.

‘How lucrative is modeling in Nigeria?’

‘It doesn’t really pay much, they always say it is still developing in Nigeria; first of all

you can’t call yourself a model and stay at home and get a modeling job, you must be

registered with an agency then your agents beings the jobs for you and he takes 30

percent out of any job he brings for you. The way it works is like this, the manufacturing company contacts an advertising firm, the advertising firm in turn contacts the modeling agency which then contacts the models, too many fingers in the pie resulting in the model earning peanuts’.

Modeling fee is regularized by A. A. M. Nevertheless, the agencies get around the fixed charges and underpay the models. For Lillian Bach, the good thing is that she can choose her jobs, reserving the privilege of rejecting any job that does not match the heights she has attained in the industry.

‘I investigate properly before going in for a job because I wouldn’t want something that would project me negatively because of my present standard. I am known as one of the top models, I wouldn’t want to bring down the industry’. For Miss Bach whose mother is seamstress, fashion designing started as a hobby before she was trained by her elder sister who is a fashion designer: ‘I love drawing and designing, I don’t like

things that are too common, when I see a particular design, I look at it to see if I can turn it around. I like creativity that is why I opened Bacola Discoveries, which is involved not only in fashion, but also in bakery and make-up!’

After meeting Miss Bach, I sincerely felt that she was wasting her talent as a

pioneer in an UN-lucrative industry. I suggested that she went into acting, which

obviously held a better future for practitioners, but she did not know where to get started. I was aware that the movie industry was dying for white actors and actresses and this was a gap that she could fill.

Once again, I started driving her to where a friend of mine was casting for two

movies, “The Drought Promise” and “Killer Priest”, I called him, booked an appointment and brought Lillian. Those became her first films, thereafter, I took her to the Ejiro brother Zeb and Chico, members of the Ejiro film dynasty, who have controlled the Nigerian movie industry for decades and whose loyalty to my pioneering effort in the industry is indubitable, and all the other producers that cannot say no to me, and today Miss Bach is celebrated as Nigeria’s most beautiful actress with hit movies like “High Street Girls”, “Mothers Help”, “Eja Osan”. I was proud to appear with her in Zeb Ejiro’s tv soap opera, “Candlelight” from which she moved into Wale Adenuga's Superstory and an endless slew of motion pictures.  The ensuing astronomical success that fired her unto the TV screens of most families in Africa and the Diaspora is the most interesting aspect of driving Lillian Bach. 

 

BOB EJIKE