Shelley began modeling in late 1964. Shelley was discovered by A&P supermarket heir and publisher Huntington Hartford at a debutante ball when she was just 14 years old. It was her first time to be invited to one and her mother instructed Shelley, "If any older men bother you, go powder your nose." And she kept powdering her nose all night because "A guy kept bothering me," Shelley said, "He kept coming up to ask, 'Have you ever thought of being a model?' " After careful consideration, and with the help of her mother, a former Conover model, she finally decided it was a better summer job than waitressing. They went to went to New York to see Eileen Ford (a friend of her mother's) for representation. In 1964, Shelley appeared in a spread in Hartford's Show magazine, in the September 1964 issue. In November of that same year, her face was on the covers of both Seventeen and Glamour magazines.
