Anne-Marie Fox is eager to get on with the business of being Anne-Marie Fox. Her life so far has been all preparation. Now she wants to do something. Early on in her 19 years of life, Anne-Marie was sentenced to a Catholic girls' school (though she's not Catholic). She got the full treatment: No boy
...s ever, no unexcused tardiness to class, uniforms must be worn at all times - you know the routine. Anne-Marie not only survived, she flourished, finding direction in discipline. "The expectations," she recalls, "were for you to be totally moral, a perfectionist, hard-working . . . which aren't bad qualities. It's character building and I needed that when I was growing up. Besides, everyone was very concerned with you, so you got a lot of attention. I didn't mind the uniforms at all. I was such a free spirit I needed some restrictions in my life."
For a while, it looked as if Anne-Marie could get a parole: Her mother went to Germany to study and took Anne-Marie along. But it was out of the frying pan and into the strudel.
"I definitely went into culture shock in Germany," she declares. "The schools are extremely strict and if you don't live up to their high standards, you're an outcast. You had to excel or you weren't accepted. For fun, kids in Germany study and take music lessons.
Plus, all my classes were in German, naturally, so I had a bit of a handicap. I managed to pick it up pretty quickly, just by being around the other kids, but the first three months were pretty rough. I still keep up on my German, but I don't run into many people I can talk to here."
Here, for Anne-Marie, is Malibu, where she finds the lifestyle considerably different. Now, the discipline is self-imposed. Fitness is king on the beach and Anne-Marie is fit.
She even teaches other people how to be fit in her job at a men's health club in West Hollywood, and for the past eight years has been studying ballet as well.
Anne-Marie hopes to parlay all that body work into a future in fashion modeling. "It's funny, because I remember having my portrait done as a child, and I cried. Now I love it. Just like my poetry, it's a way of expressing myself. Sometimes I get so into it that everything around me disappears, and I just get into the camera, one on one."
Long-term, Anne-Marie wants to be an architect. For now, she is content to enjoy the Malibu sun. "I love it here, the ocean and the mountains. I look forward to going home in the evening."
When she does get home, Anne-Marie turns reflective, writing poetry or making entries in her diary. She's also a music lover, playing piano and violin and listening to classical and rock.
And if she had an extra wish, one she could just blow: "I've always wanted to be in a James Bond movie."
