Speaking of her childhood with her "rageoholic pedophile" of a father, Dickinson stated, "Because I wouldn't give in and let him have sex with me, I was verbally and physically abused on a daily basis.

"[9] She was discovered by the fashion photographer Jacques Silberstein when his girlfriend, actress Lorraine Bracco, mentioned she liked Dickinson's look.

Her modeling pursuits led her to Paris, France, where her "exotic looks" secured her reputation within the European fashion industry.

[9] She returned to New York City in 1978, and spent the next several years working steadily, earning $2,000 per day, nearly four times the standard rate.

[9] Dickinson eventually signed with Ford Models to land a major ad campaign for a new JVC camera.

[14] By the 1980s, Dickinson was considered a supermodel, as she "possessed the kind of name and face recognition" that the majority of women in the modeling industry strive to achieve.

[7] She appeared within and on covers of magazines including Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Photo, Vogue, Marie Claire, and Playboy, and worked with some of fashion's best-known names, including Bill Blass, Gianni Versace, Valentino Garavani, Azzedine Alaïa, Pino Lancetti, Halston, Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein.

[6] She was seen on the cover of Elle seven times in a row and has been the face of ad campaigns for brands including Revlon, Alberto VO5, Balmain, Obao, Christian Dior, Clairol, Hush Puppies, Orbit gum, Max Factor, Virginia Slims, and Cutex.

The writer Judith Cass used the term in 1942 in her Chicago Tribune article "Super Models are Signed for Fashion Show".

[22] In 1968, an article in Glamour described Twiggy, Cheryl Tiegs, Wilhelmina, Veruschka, Jean Shrimpton, and 15 other models as "supermodels".

"[25] Jean Shrimpton was described as a supermodel by Time in 1971,[26] as were Margaux Hemingway by Vogue on September 1, 1975,[27] Beverly Johnson by Jet in 1977,[28] and Naomi Sims in the 1978 book Total Beauty Catalog by K.T.

[29] Lisa Fonssagrives[30][31][32][33] and Dorian Leigh, whose careers began before Dickinson was born, have been retroactively recognized as the 20th century's first supermodels.

In 2003, Dickinson returned to media attention with her position as a judge on the reality television series America's Next Top Model.

She was hired after producer Tyra Banks read No Lifeguard On Duty and realized that Dickinson could offer the contestants advice on the perils of the fashion industry.

She was confronted by castmate Omarosa Manigault during a publicity photo shoot while Dickinson was posing with a prop knife.

She created controversy after the claimed effects of accidentally mixing a sleeping aid with champagne caused her to fall down a flight of stairs and burst out at the models.

In 2010, Dickinson appeared on the celebrity edition of British dinner-party contest Come Dine with Me, on which she frequently butted heads with former Page 3 Girl Samantha Fox over her glamour modeling career, and flirted with Calum Best.

[54] In August 2015, Dickinson was a housemate on the sixteenth season of the British reality show, Celebrity Big Brother.

Janice has reacted to many supermodels walks like, Naomi Campbell, Shalom Harlow, Carmen Kass, Gisele Bündchen, Vlada Roslyakova and many more.

Titled No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel (2002), the book was effective in introducing her to a new generation.

[7] Her 2004 follow-up memoir was Everything About Me Is Fake… And I'm Perfect,[7][68] in which she describes her life in modeling; her experience with plastic surgery; and her battles with anorexia, bulimia, and alcoholism.