That all changed when an undercover sting callously revealed to the world that she was born a boy.
It was the early 1980s and she became the world’s most famous transgender woman – choosing to tell her remarkable story in the Sunday Mirror.
But life in Britain was to become too much after she was mocked by cruel sections of the press, attacked by a male fan and pounced on by a “lynch mob” bombarding her with personal questions.
Fleeing the UK, she became a virtual recluse and swapped A-list parties – and Playboy photoshoots – for anonymity.
But now she is back in the limelight, buoyed by the rise of transgender women in the public eye. And in her first British interview for almost three decades, the ex-model from Norfolk again turns to the Sunday Mirror to tell her story.
She says: “In the 1980s, being transgender was like a death sentence – it still can be in certain countries.
“So when you had your surgery, you just put your head down and got on with your life. When I was outed, it was like I had been fooling everybody but that’s not how it was. I was treated like a criminal, like a hunted animal. I was destroyed overnight.
“At one personal appearance I was in the bathroom when a big guy pushed his way in. He closed the door and said ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything, I’m a fan’.
"Then to my absolute horror he assaulted me. I couldn’t speak, I was in shock. It was devastating and it upsets me to talk about it to this day.
“Experiences like that should never have happened. No one had the right to out me as being transgender but things were different back then.
“There was nothing I could do and my life was in tatters so I ran away. I hid from the limelight because it was the only way to feel safe.
"But things have changed and I look at other trans women in the public eye, doing well for themselves and commanding respect. I am finally ready to come back and hold my head up high.”
Caroline, 62, transitioned from male to female when she was 20.
She says the assault was the catalyst for fleeing Britain. And she says her biggest heartache was not being able to have children with her second husband David Finch, 51.
It has been a difficult journey. When Caroline was working as a model, being transgender was not widely accepted.
“Outed” in 1981 – around the time she appeared in For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore – she even contemplated suicide.
Caroline gave up a highly-paid job on TV gameshow 3-2-1 rather than face the hysteria whipped up in the UK. She says: “I couldn’t make myself a target by appearing on TV all the time.
The show was so successful it ran for 10 years. It’s amazing to think what my life would have been like if I’d stayed. All the jobs offered after my past was revealed became based on my gender.
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