Born on August 25th 1970, Claudia was raised in Dusseldorf, Germany to a homemaker mom and lawyer dad. As a child growing up, Claudia did not wish to become a model, rather she wanted to be a lawyer and work in her father's successful law firm.

Claudia's aspirations of becoming a successful attorney came to a halt when she went to a nightclub for a night on the town with her friends in October 1987. A modeling agent, Michel Levaton, spotted Claudia and was instantly taken with her. Claudia inevitably flew off to Paris for her first test shoot and indubitably, a star was born.

Claudia's initial emergence came from the popular cover shot for Elle magazine. Claudia began receiving unbelievable recognition by magazines in Europe and was later selected to be the new Guess? girl in 1989.

All the while that she was fulfilling her Guess? ad campaign duties, Claudia managed to appear on five magazine covers in the United States and seven in Europe.

At 5'11" with long, flowing blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, she has appeared on over five hundred magazine covers and her annual calendar is always one of the hottest selling items around.

She has made many television appearances throughout her successful career on shows such as Larry King Live, The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Besides her television stints, Claudia has also appeared in a number of feature films including the most recent, Black & White (2000), which starred everyone from Mike Tyson to Robert Downey Jr.

Claudia has even made a personal exercise video and is also quite the entrepreneur, considering she was one of the original founders of the trendy Fashion Cafe (with fellow supermodels Elle MacPherson, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell,).

As for her hobbies, Claudia likes to ride horses, paint, play tennis, read, ski, and dance. As well, this beauty is also fluently trilingual - she speaks German, French and English.

Claudia remains one of the top five supermodels in the modelling industry today. She signed a four-year contract with Revlon cosmetics worth $6 million. Unfortunately for us, the contract states that she can't pose nude during that time.

Claudia certainly hopes to continue modeling well into the new millennium. She would also like to make the transition and become a respected, successful actress and later on hopes to raise a family of her own.