Donna Rice Hughes - Early Years

Early Years

The daughter of a highway engineer and secretary, Donna Rice spent her childhood in Florida, Georgia (in Atlanta), and South Carolina. She began a modeling career at age 13 and maintained a high grade point average in high school while also attending church services and working part-time as a clothing store sales clerk.

Rice graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1980 as a biology major, where she was both an honors student and cheerleader. College graduation was also a critical time for her, she said: "I really didn't know where to go next. I had big expectations, and not a lot of guidance." After she graduated from the university, she entered the Miss South Carolina/World beauty pageant and won. She went to New York to compete nationally.

Rice has openly said she was a victim of date-rape "on the way to New York by an older man who was involved with the pageant system, and lost my virginity at that time." She says the rape was "the turning point in my life, the catalyst that propelled me further into an unhealthy lifestyle". While she did not win the beauty pageant, she remained in New York to pursue an acting and modeling career.

After a relative lack of success in New York City, Rice moved to Miami, where she worked as a television commercial actress for a pharmaceutical company and a small marketing business, as well as appearing in an episode of the TV series Miami Vice. In March 1987, she met former Senator Gary Hart at a Miami fundraiser.