CLICK HERE TO WATCH RORY'S RALPH LAUREN COMMERCIAL IN FULL

ONE of Rory Marshall's defining moments came when he was being assessed for his biggest contract.

Just before meeting the main man a small group of Ralph Lauren's staff asked him to introduce himself and tell them something interesting about his life.

The conversation went something like this:

Rory: "Hello, my name's Rory Marshall, I live in a small Yorkshire town called Ilkley where I live in a little house which was actually once owned by Enid Blyton."

Staff: "Wow! Gee! That's amazing!! Enid Blyton!"

Rory: "Do you know who Enid Blyton is?"

Staff: "Er, no."

Luckily they did know a potential icon when they saw one and Rory, 29, landed himself just about the top gig a model can get – the new face of Polo.

Alongside fronting campaigns for Calvin Klein or Georgio Armani it doesn't get much bigger than that.

And so with his chiselled good looks, last year he found himself filming in the middle of a desert.

To top it off he was being snapped by world-famous fashion photographer Bruce Weber – the man who helped launch the careers of Isobella Rossellini, Mark Wahlberg and Kate Moss.

As a result Rory's image can now be seen on billboards, magazines, theatre and TV screens around the globe.

Not bad for a lad from Ilkley whose modelling career was launched by our very own Richard and Judy.

"I'd honestly never thought of myself as anything special, at school I wasn't one of those guys who always got loads of girls or anything like that. Just run of the mill really, " he says.

"Then my mum sent my picture into This Morning when they launched their model search competition.

Catwalk

"I'd have rather died than send it in myself and I'd never really considered modelling before then, I didn't even think it was something you could actually make a living out of.

"I was 21 and just finishing university and next thing you know I've won this competition and I'm flying out to Milan to do a catwalk show."

Rory bagged a contract with the elite agency Select who supply models to the biggest and best in the business.

He's landed contracts with everything from French Connection to Lacoste and Calvin Klein and jetted around the globe with his work.

So is it as great a lifestyle as we'd all imagine it to be?

"There are great parts but it can actually be quite a lonely job in a way.

"When you were a kid you used to get excited about going to an airport and going abroad.

"But when you have to do it for your work it means getting up at ridiculous o'clock dragging yourself on a plane and even if you're in a beautiful place you rarely get much time to enjoy it.

"And people think it's this wild lifestyle of parties and women and actually more often than not it just ends up with you and some of the other lads just sitting up drinking like anyone else would."

Which goes some way towards explaining why Rory, who has lived in Ilkley from the age of five and went to the local grammar school, still prefers to live in the Yorkshire town.

"It's familiarity and security.

"I have all my friends and family on my doorstep and sometimes you need to be away from somewhere to realise how good a place is.

"Ilkley is such a beautiful town, I was actually telling Bruce Weber all about it, which is a bit weird given all the beautiful places he must have been to.

"But when you think it's right by the river, in a valley with hills on one side, the moors on the other, it's just breathtaking.

"You're just minutes from the Dales and the centre of Leeds. I'll probably stay here for the rest of my life.

"And I think I have as good a quality of life in Ilkley as I would in New York or Paris or somewhere, even though I might get more work if I lived somewhere like that."

Normality

Rory insists he's just as happy drinking in his local as any chic bar.

In fact he laughs at the fact that after years spent attending elite post-fashion show parties he was recently turned away from a not terribly elite club in Leeds.

Still, he likes being kept down to earth and there's ostensibly nothing which even hints at arrogance or self-awareness.

Which is some feat given his career which, by anyone's standards, is stellar.

Even prior to Ralph Lauren, Rory was the face of top French cosmetics company Lancôme before the products he advertised were changed and fronted by actor Clive Owen.

"I actually remember walking into the agency just after they didn't renew and the staff were all saying, 'Ah well, don't worry Rory, we'll get another contract.'

"And I tried to brush it off and just said jokingly, 'Well, if you could just try and get me a Ralph Lauren campaign now that'll do me fine' and they all laughed 'cos the odds are so heavily stacked against you.

"On some level I was glad not to have the Lancôme contract renewed because if I had have been tied to them I couldn't have done Polo."

His next employer is Marks & Spencer which, although it might not seem as top-end as many of his contracts, is certainly up there in terms of lucrativeness.

But he refuses to say how much he gets paid for his work. "I won't even tell my mates," he insists.

Nor does he spill the beans on any of the famous people he's been romantically involved with.

Though a telling, semi-suppressed grin gives away the fact that his love life has been far from dull.

He's just come out of a relationship with a woman who wasn't linked to the fashion industry and insists his work often gets in the way of forming long-term relationships because he invariably finds himself on far-flung shores.

Small wonder then that Rory is quite un-Ilkley in his appearance.

He has a head of thick, sunkissed blond hair, a deep tan from his last job in South Africa and fixing blue eyes.

It's also effortless. His wardrobe isn't packed with designer wear. On the day we meet he's wearing a Tesco blazer, Converse trainers and a jumper tugged out of shape by his puppy Snoops.

And although he goes to the gym twice a week he insists he doesn't stick to rigorous programmes of skincare and healthy eating.

As for the hair, he cuts that himself using nail scissors.

He said: "A lot of the male models are like me in that respect, they don't always feel the need to constantly maintain this perfect image, not when they're not working.

"I've reached the stage now where I'm comfortable and confident in my career. I don't have quite so much to prove.

"I mean if they'd have turned round to me after doing Ralph Lauren and said I couldn't work again I probably would have been happy because I couldn't have got a job better than that."

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