Anthony Borden Ward was discovered at eighteen while attending West Valley College in Saratoga and moved to Los Angeles to chase the work. By the late 1980s, he was the face of Calvin Klein underwear in front of Herb Ritts, the campaign that turned him into one of the first male models American advertising sold as a star in his own right.

The American supermodel went on to sit for Karl Lagerfeld, Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, and Terry Richardson, and to front campaigns for Roberto Cavalli, Dolce & Gabbana, Diesel, Fendi, and Hugo Boss. He arrived in the industry early enough to help define what a male supermodel could be, and the cohort that followed him through the 1990s grew out of the template he was already running.

Tony’s profile widened past fashion through his relationship with Madonna at the start of the 1990s, with appearances in the “Cherish,” “Justify My Love,” and “Erotica” videos and a presence inside the 1992 Sex book that placed him in the center of the era’s loudest pop-cultural object.

George Michael featured him in the 1996 “Fastlove” video and the Spice Girls put him in “Say You’ll Be There” the same year, two appearances that confirmed Tony as the face pop music reached for when it wanted male desire on camera. The same year, Bruce LaBruce and Rick Castro cast him in the lead of Hustler White, the underground feature that turned the modeling persona into a screen one.

Tony has continued working across every decade since, from Givenchy menswear under Riccardo Tisci and a long Wormland run to Dolce & Gabbana and later Brunello Cucinelli. Decades after the Ritts images, Tony Ward still has the type of history fashion likes to keep close, a face shaped as much by time as by the camera.