Gerard Ford, better known as Jerry, was the co-founder of the giant Ford Modeling Agency. He died aged 83 on 24 August, 2008.

He and his wife Eileen set up the New York-based company in 1946 and were hugely influential in turning the modelling profession into a serious business.

The ebullient Eileen, herself a former model, was the face of the company, but it was Jerry who recognised the business potential of a major modelling agency.

They gave breaks to many of the first generation of supermodels in the 1950s and in the 1980s they launched the Ford Supermodel of the World competition which attracts 60,000 hopefuls every year.

The likes of Mary Jane Russell, Dorian Leigh , Jane Fonda, Veronica Webb and Christie Brinkley have been on the books of Ford Models (as the company is now known) while actresses Courteney Cox, Ashley Tisdale and Lindsay Lohan have also been represented by the Fords.

Another legendary Ford model, Carmen Dell'Orefice, paid tribute to Mr Ford: "Before Jerry came along, there were only robber barons who were out there running modelling schools … He knew about business and he saw what was going on with the models, the clients and the photographers."

After founding the company, Mr Ford revolutionised the industry by paying models daily from the firm's own coffers instead of waiting for clients to pay their bills. This fair-minded process made his agency popular with models and they were able to command an exclusive list of talent during the boom years of the advertising industry.

They faced increasing competition in recent decades but continued to be at the forefront of the fashion trade with innovative ventures to make the best of changing technology. The Fords sold the company to an investment bank in December 2007.

Gerard William Ford was born on 2 October, 1924 in New Orleans. He met Eileen in 1944 and they were married later that year. After serving in the US Navy in Asia during the tail end of the Second World War, Mr Ford returned to the states and started doing accountancy work for Eileen's model friends. It was then he realised the money that was to be made in modelling. "I thought models were the most incredible things in the world," he said in a later interview.

He died in New Jersey at the age of 83 and was survived by his wife and four children.