Katie Price - The Jordan Years Review
Documentary Tracks Transformation From Jordan to Real Katie Price
May 31, 2009
Filmmaker Richard Macer tracks this journey in his one-hour documentary, Katie Price: The Jordan Years. He first began filming Price in 2001, when he began the first of three documentaries about the glamour model. By the end of their third film together, Price had undergone a transformation, as Katie Price: The Jordan Years shows. The result, however, offers little new information.
Anyone who has followed Price and her career won’t be surprised by what emerges in Katie Price: The Jordan Years: Her rise to fame, her outspoken nature, and the birth of her son, Harvey, born with disabilities. Besides Price, Macer interviews the people who had a role in making her successful, such as her former agents (two of which tried to launch her into a music career), photographer Jeany Savage and even Price’s mom, Amy.
The Public's Perception of Katie Price
Katie Price: The Jordan Years, even includes input from the public on what made “Jordan,” the fantasy of teenage boys, to Katie Price, working mother of three kids who is worth an estimated 30 million pounds. “She’s beautiful, powerful and rich, and comes from the level everyone else has come from,” one woman on the street says.
Special touches come in the form of footage of a young Katie at her mom’s second wedding, and early modeling shots of a 17-year-old Katie, with long, curly hair — which she hated — posing on a beach, and of her cuddling her infant son. The doting mom image is a long way away from the glamour model bestowed with huge breast implants and blond hair extensions.
The Interest in Jordan's Breast Implants
The interest in Price (as "Jordan") had to do with “freaky, big boobs” Macer says, with some people thinking her breasts were the only remarkable thing about her. Was this true? Not according to Samantha Bond, the woman who first received the photos of Price on the beach and shaped her career into “Jordan.” “I think as soon as she walked into my office I knew she was going to be famous,” Bond says, citing her personality.
Macer even interviews the plastic surgeon who performed Price’s first breast implants. He remembers a patient who knew what she wanted, and even pulled her first implants out of a drawer. (She had gone back for second implants).
Katie Price at Work
Macer’s film also depicts a Price who ran by her own schedule. She showed up late to photo shoots — one clip even shows a clearly irritated Savage on the phone with a late Price — and when she was on set, only stuck around for as long as she wanted, and even pulled an attitude on one shoot, where didn’t like the outfit she was wearing.
“There is part of me that feels sometimes that Katie is not 100 per cent happy. She’s so busy … I don’t think that’s healthy all the time,” Savage says. Perhaps Savage’s observation came from Price’s working to be taken seriously. For instance, with respect to her music career, she points out she could record a pop song as Jordan, in a bikini, but that would be predictable. Price says she wants to be original.
Jordan Versus Katie Price
Herein the gulf between “Jordan” and Katie Price emerges. Jordan had a slutty image, but Price didn’t sleep around. She shared a bungalow with her friend, Sally, up until she bought her own home. In one scene in Katie Price: The Jordan Years, she tells an allegedly abusive ex-boyfriend who phones her repeatedly to stay out of her life.
Katie Price's First Pregnancy
When Price became pregnant with Harvey, she worried her pregnancy would be a turnoff for her fans who knew her from the lads’ mags. She and the father of her son, footballer Dwight Yorke, were no longer together, so it was single-mom Kate that began to shift the public’s perception toward her — and drew in female admirers. Now it was OK for women to like Price.
Ultimately, according to Katie Price: The Jordan Years, the shift in public perception toward Price wasn’t the result of a career move on her part, but what happened in her personal life. She split up with a boyfriend while pregnant, gave birth to a boy, Harvey, who has disabilities, and got on with the business of accepting it and raising him. She later married (then separated from) singer Peter Andre, and had two children with him. Price’s struggles have made the public — women in particular — able to relate to her.
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