She is the tall, leggy cover girl and former beauty queen who went on to prove that it is possible to have both brains and good looks. Josanne Cassar met Stephanie Spiteri, TV presenter of Ghada Nibda’ Zgur, for lunch at Gigi’s in St Julian’s

Gigi’s concept café has been open since last September – the owner Matthew Deguara tells me that it is not named after someone called Gigi, as some might think, but is merely the initials GG taken from what was going to be the name originally, Groovy Gossip.

This place, with its enviable location in Spinola Bay, has changed hands several times, but the new management seems to have finally struck the right note. By day its comfortable sofas are great to lounge around on for lunch or a coffee while a handy internet café has been provided on one side. In the evening, it turns into a relaxed wine bar, and later on into a bar.

The décor is also Matthew’s brainchild with the help of his friend Clemens, owner of Il-Forn in Birgu. Wooden tables have been sanded down and painted with colourful designs. On the day we were there, the walls were adorned with Clemens’ paintings, which will soon give way to another exhibition by another artist.

I am relieved to find Stephanie Spiteri already seated when I come in. She is a mere half an inch shy of six feet and standing next to her gives me a complex. Understandably, being so tall almost gave her a complex when she was just 15 and used to tower above everyone else.

“I’d walk into a room and everyone would look at me, I used to hate it. I was always taller than all of my friends and used to really stick out. To this day I still hear that phrase, ‘My God, look at the size of you’ (daqs xhiex fik!) – now I’ve learned how to handle it and say ‘so what?’ but when I was that age it felt like a dagger. Eventually, I began to accept my height and be proud of it, carrying myself well. After that, of course, people began to assume that I was stuck-up,” she shrugs with resignation.

In this world, you just can’t win.

Despite the dearth of tall Maltese men, dating was never a problem for the attractive Stephanie. Still, when she spotted someone who stood at 6’4” at Saddles, even she remarked to herself, “wow he’s tall.” She was wearing a mini skirt and apparently his first impression was “wow, what a great pair of legs.”

And that is how she met Mark Bugeja, who is now her husband.

“I had just started going to Saddles, it was the in place for the tal-Pepe types in those days. Before that, I used to go to Styx, but I had just made friends with a new clique and they insisted we go to Saddles. So that’s how it all started, him looking at my legs and me looking at his height. He used to make me laugh, and still does.”

Instead of old photos, Stephanie has brought with her a 1990 issue of Elegance magazine when she was their cover girl.

“That was me then, it was a completely different life,” she announces as she puts it down on the table. She then pulls out two photos of her with her husband and son, “and this is me now. I’m not that girl any more. I’m proud of what I did, I don’t regret it but I realise how much my priorities have changed, completely.”

Modelling opened the doors to television for her, and apart from a brief spell after her son was born, Stephanie has always had a TV programme on air.

Models tend to get a lot of bad press, often stereotyped as ‘airheads’ who do not have a single thought in their head – Stephanie says she never suffered from this label, putting it down to the fact that she comes from an unpretentious family.

“My father, especially, is a very down-to-earth guy. He used to be a police sergeant so I grew up in an extremely strict household. There was nothing frivolous at home. When you’re eating, you eat, you don’t have Coke or Seven-Up, you drink water. We didn’t have any extra luxuries. So I was never a daydreamer; I grew up always knowing who I was and what I was.”

Considering this no nonsense background, it is surprising that her decision to join the decidedly flighty world of modelling was met with support, not disapproval.

“Of course, my father always knew exactly what I was doing, who I was with, what I would be wearing and he’d check out everything about the people first. Gradually when he realised I could be trusted, he relaxed a bit and put more trust in me. Naturally, times were different; at 19 I still had to be home at 9pm and my parents would come and pick me up themselves.”

At the age of 17, she won the Miss Malta title and represented our country in Taiwan. It was an exciting experience even though she was a “Mummy’s girl” who had never been abroad and was extremely naïve.

“I had no idea what I was supposed to do, I felt lost. Then you see Miss Venezuela coming with a whole entourage; she was there to win. I was there like a silly fool with people asking me where Malta is and me trying to explain about this small island no one had ever heard of. I remember one day on the coach a girl said, ‘I would kill for a McDonald’s right now.’ At the time we had no McDonald’s in Malta and for me, Wimpy’s was it. So I said, ‘I would love to go to Wimpy’s!’ And they all turned around, ‘Wimpy’s?’ and burst out laughing. It became the joke of the town and I felt like a real idiot. I was so young and didn’t have any confidence, but the experience taught me a lot. That was in 1987 – it sounds so long ago!” she sighs.

Does the age thing bother you?

“I like to joke a lot about it, but deep down I think it must bother me, even though I don’t admit it. Especially when I look in the mirror and think, ‘maybe if I don’t smile, I won’t get another wrinkle there.’ In fact, I try not to wear make-up during the day because I wear so much make-up for the programme that I need to take care of my skin.”

Her modelling life lasted for about eight years; she stopped when she realised that it was no longer that important to her.

As the youngest of three sisters, Stephanie admits she was the most pampered by her Dad, not because of any extra demonstrative affection, “but I could feel that I had special treatment.”

To this day, her father records every single thing she does on television, from an advert to a programme, “everything I’ve done over the last 18 years,” she points out. “However, now his attention is mostly on my two and a half year-old son Michael.”

Stephanie herself will readily agree that Michael has become the number one priority in her life. Apart from an added maturity and sense of responsibility, motherhood has brought other changes.

“The biggest change in my lifestyle is that I haven’t slept through a whole night since he’s been born. He just doesn’t sleep. Also on the day I realised I was pregnant I stopped drinking diet Coke to which I am literally addicted. It may sound silly but it was just as hard for me as when other people stop smoking. I only started drinking it again when I stopped breastfeeding.”

Whereas before she would accept every invitation to do a programme or appear on TV, she has cut back on a lot of commitments because of her child.

At this point, the chef comes out to explain some of the day’s specialities which all sound delicious. Although she does not need to, Stephanie chooses to have a salad like me, a pan seared fresh salmon marinated in lemon, garlic and oyster sauce over a bed of mixed leaf lettuce. It is probably one of the best-tasting salads I have ever had, and Stephanie, who loves to cook, decides she will try the oyster sauce in one of her next recipes.

“I’m always watching my weight, and I’m really happy that I’ve managed to lose what I had gained. But I still have to be careful, because I love my food,” she says.

Stephanie Spiteri worries about her weight? What hope is there for the rest of us?

Together with her husband, Stephanie runs two shops and even though she has staff, she still goes to work in the mornings.

“I used to work for a company into which I put my heart and soul, even taking work home. The more the company grew, the more the workload increased, but unfortunately I didn’t always get the credit I deserved. My husband used to tell me, ‘you’ve got all this initiative, let’s open something of our own’, but I always turned the idea down. Finally, he convinced me to go see a shop which was available in Sliema and from one day to the next, without my knowing how it happened, we took the shop. We had no idea what we were going to do with it.”

Being a girl from Hamrun, she could see the difference between the shopping amenities in the two towns.

“In Hamrun, if you need a pair of socks, a newspaper, or sweets, you go to the same shop, the shop next door and you know the owners by name. In Sliema you don’t find these kind of shops so I told my husband, ‘let’s do a Hamrun shop in Sliema’ – he said, ‘OK, but don’t you dare call it a bazaar!’ So we opened The Orange Tree which is basically a stationary shop, but where you can find all sorts of things. That was nine years ago. Then five years ago another shop became available down the road and we were worried that someone would take it and open up with the same kind of business. So we took it and turned into a drycleaner’s and a bargain shop. Now, we’re going to have a third shop as well…”

Although the business has been successful, she admits that running the shops and dealing with the staff has taken its toll.

“I’m tired now, and given the opportunity I’d get out. When the phone rings at 6am and one of the girls phones in sick, it means that my husband or I have to open the shop. I’m 35 now and the older I get the more I feel, ‘where is my life?’ I’m a workaholic so if I didn’t have the shop I’d be involved in something else. But there are days when I hate the shop with a vengeance, when I can’t take all the problems any more. But then there are days when I enjoy it because I love meeting people all day long.”

Although outwardly she appears to be very organised and seems to be successfully juggling several things at once, she says that there are times when if a little thing going wrong it will trigger her off and it feels like the end of the world.

“I really make a fuss sometimes, blowing a problem all out of proportion because everything just gets to me. It would have ruined what I had planned.”

She accepted to present the daily programme Ghada Nibda’ Zgur because it only takes two hours in the early evening which is just enough for her to cope with, “and there is Charmaine who helps with the production,” she adds gratefully.

Doing TV fulltime, for the moment, does not interest her. “I don’t want to have to worry about the hassles of buying airtime, because I have enough of those kind of worries with the shops. Plus, I have to be realistic, how much longer will people want to see me? There are new faces coming up all the time.”

She knows just how easily new faces can be offered a chance to do TV. Her own introduction to the medium started by chance soon after she started modelling, when a next-door neighbour was given a religious programme to produce and asked her to present it.

Understandably, her initial teenage reaction was, “who me? A religious programme, forget it!” Her father convinced her to give it a try, but she got off on the wrong foot by arriving for her first programme wearing a mini skirt.

“They sent me home to change,” she says, laughing at the memory.

She has found facing a camera much easier than being on stage facing an audience.

“Of course, if I had to visualise who is looking at me and what they’re saying about me, I probably couldn’t do it. So I don’t think about it. When I hear how people talk about other presenters on TV, ‘look at what she’s wearing, look at her hair!’ I cringe because I know that’s what they must do to me. You are there to be criticised. For example, I love following fashion and I think being on TV is the place to do it, but I know a lot of people criticise me because of that. One woman said about me, ‘she’s over 30 years old, what’s she doing wearing a mini skirt?!’ However, as long as I’m presentable I feel I can still wear certain things. What am I supposed to wear, a buttoned up shirt with a brooch?”

Yes, TV viewers can be ruthless with presenters. There is something about appearing regularly on TV which makes you become so familiar to the audience that they feel they can take certain liberties in the way they speak about your appearance.

“I’m very bony here,” Stephanie says touching her shoulders. “So people are constantly commenting to Pierre Portelli (the producer) that I shouldn’t wear revealing strappy tops because I look like skin and bones. But I like my shoulders; I like showing them! What are they wearing at home, a pyjama? Let them wear what they like, but leave me alone! If my bones are bothering them they can switch channels,” she says flinging her hand up in exasperation.

She was not always this assertive. However, a supportive, encouraging husband has taught her how to be comfortable with herself.

“If other men look at me, he takes it as a compliment and he will often tell me that I look good. He is not threatened at all because he says, ‘well you’re my wife, and you’re coming home with me tonight’, so that helps a lot.”

She talks about the brief culture shock she experienced when she moved from Hamrun to her husband’s home town of Sliema.

“People here are more dressy. In Hamrun, if you are watching TV and suddenly remember you need to buy some milk, you just run out, no matter what you’re wearing and buy it. Here, you wouldn’t dream of doing that and you don’t really see anyone wearing shabby clothes. Once you walk out the door you are in Sliema. I think people here make more of an effort to look nice.

“And in Hamrun, neighbours are always calling out to each other, ‘Carmen, the vegetable man is here, do you need something?’ There’s a real feeling of community. Here I live in a flat and if I meet someone in my block we just say ‘hello, good morning’ and that’s it. Having said that, I’ve been made to feel very welcome, especially with the shop.”

There was also a bit of adjustment when it came to language. Although her English is fluent, Stephanie never used to speak it at home, so her first inclination would be to speak to her customers in Maltese. It took a while to get used to the fact that for a large section of Sliema’s population, the first language is really English.

Sweet-looking as she is, she says she has a tough side to her.

“In fact, I realise how aggressive I am when I’m with Mark. If someone cuts me off in traffic I roll down the window and start shouting, and he’ll tell me calmly, ‘now what’s that going to solve?’”

As for more children, she is adamant that that is out of the question.

“I know it might sound selfish, but I think I would be selfish if I did have more. I want to be able dedicate myself completely to my son which I can do, but if I have another child, I’d have to give up a lot of other things which I don’t want to do. We waited eight years before we had our son, and I’m glad we did. In fact, if I had to give advice, I’d tell people to take their time before having children because your life changes so completely. It’s not easy and you really have to be ready for them.”