LOS ANGELES — Nina Blanchard, the founder of an internationally known Hollywood modeling agency whose roster included Cheryl Tiegs and other top models, has died. She was 81.

Blanchard died of cardiac arrest Sunday at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, said Ed Dawson, a longtime friend.

A onetime TV makeup artist, casting director and modeling school executive director, Blanchard started the Nina Blanchard Agency in 1961.

Booking talent for commercials, print advertising and runways, her agency was described in the Los Angeles Times in the 1980s as “the best-known and richest of its kind outside Manhattan.”

By then, past and present Blanchard models included familiar names such as Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Shari Belafonte, Rene Russo, Cristina Ferrare and Catherine Oxenberg.

“There’s no question she was the best agent in California,” said Eileen Ford, a close friend and the founder of Ford Models, the New York-based powerhouse agency.