Modeling superstar hits ML

Bruno Santos considered one of the world's top 20 male models

Bruno Santos is a man on a mission.

The mission is to break through the stereotypes of modeling while building a successful career on the runways and hopefully on the silver screen.

His career has periodically taken him places most people dare not dream of, but his values take him places most would not dare dream a superstar could ever visit.

Like Moses Lake. Consider it part of his mission, remaining atop the glitzy world of fashion while remaining true to his friends, his family and his humble beginnings.

Despite the perceptions of a glamorous lifestyle, Santos insists that the fashion business is just like any other business, even if his particular line of work takes him from Moses Lake to Seattle, and then to Miami, Paris and Milan, with stops in Toronto and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Still, Santos said that the qualities that make a person successful in any other job have to be there to attain success in the fashion world.

"Work ethics make the man," he said. "You must work hard, be professional, and have a strong personality."

Both Santos and his agent Ike Gamez trace the roots of such beliefs to Santos' childhood in the city of Belo Horizonte, in his native land.

"I come from a poor family, I sold ice cream as a kid," he said. "I worked on a farm, milking cows at three in the morning. I worked as a math tutor. So when I started as a model, it was a new job for me."

That was three years ago, and now, as one of the biggest stars in the fashion firmament, Santos speaks freely of the unknown side of his flashy trade.

"It's hard work," he said. "Photo shoots are not easy like people think. A photo shoot sometimes has 80 (people working)."

People's opinion of his way to make a buck do not affect Santos, either.

"I believe that when somebody has a preconceived notion of somebody else," he said, "that person does not have a problem with the other person, but with himself,"

Smiling almost continually, Santos said that it does not make sense to waste time with negativity regarding someone else's life. "I don't talk about anybody," he said.

Still, he does make the concession that perhaps his way of looking at life sets him apart from the stereotype of models."

"I am different," he said. "I am a model, but I am also a businessman, a script-writer, I write poetry and I help my family, too. I am not the stereotype people have of models."

Asked to define himself, he answered, "I am just a simple guy who works in the fashion business. I work the best I can do," he said, his Portuguese accent showing, "but I don't let that go to my head."

His work habits are unlike what people think of models, Gamez said. "He does not go to the gym," he said. "His body is made of work on the farm and in construction."

Gamez believes the strengths of Santos, whom he met in Paris, rely north of the biceps. "All models are beautiful, but what separates them is intelligence and personality. Bruno is always working."

As bright as his present is, with constant modeling gigs between the two giants of fashion Armani and Versace, Santos and Gamez are focusing on the future, which they hope goes beyond the click of the camera, and onto the world of acting.

"We don't want him to be another pretty face," Gamez said. "We want him to be taken seriously as an actor."

Santos' incursions in acting include a Sony commercial directed by Joe Pytka, the man in charge of most of the commercials seen every year during the Super Bowl.

Though Gamez said they have had to reject several offers from Hollywood studios, the mere fact that the kid from Belo Horizonte has reached such levels of stardom has Santos' family in a state that goes above disbelief.

"They are in shock," Gamez said of Santos' mom and siblings, all of whom still live in Brazil, and whom he visits whenever his busy schedule gives him a chance.

"I am closer to my family than any normal person should be," Santos said. "I try not to make publicity when I go to Brazil, I just want to see my family."

It is family what got him to trade the modeling runways of New York for a stroll down Third Avenue in Moses Lake. During his first trip to the U.S., Santos, speaking little English, stayed with Gamez family. Gamez' mother, a Moses Lake resident, passed away last year, and Santos came to a memorial service.

"No one lives forever but their love and truth live forever," he said. "Ike's mom's life was based on that."