Tyra Banks

Fashion Model

• Born: December 4, 1973
• Birthplace: Inglewood, California

Fashion model, entertainer, and actor

Banks became an international supermodel during the 1990s. Both her beauty and her ambition enabled her to break down professional barriers encountered by other Black American models. That same drive and motivation enabled her to become a popular television personality in the 2000s.

Areas of achievement: Business; Fashion; Film: acting; Radio and television

Early Life

Tyra Lynne Banks was born on December 4, 1973, in Inglewood, California, to Don Banks, a computer consultant, and Carolyn London-Johnson, a business manager and medical photographer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). After her parents had an amicable divorce in 1980, both parents remained involved in raising Banks and her older brother, Devin. As a child, Banks loved to dress up in her mother’s clothes and pretend to be a model. She spent countless hours watching her two favorite television shows, Style with Elsa Klensch on CNN and House of Style on MTV.

As a teenager, Banks attended the John Burroughs Middle School and Immaculate Heart High School, a private Catholic girls school. She graduated in 1991 and made plans to study film at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Before she began college classes, though, she was discovered by a French modeling scout and offered work as a haute couture runway model in Paris.

Life’s Work

Banks found instant success as a model. Upon arriving in Paris, she was hired to model in twenty-five runway shows, a stunning total for a novice. She soon founded Tygirl, Inc., in order to oversee her career and brought her mother to Paris to be her manager. Banks soon was working with such fashion giants as Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta, and Tommy Hilfiger.

In 1993, Banks appeared on the cover of Essence magazine and won a recurring role in the popular NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as the love interest to Will Smith’s title character. That same year, she signed a multiyear contract with cosmetics company CoverGirl—a rare achievement for a Black American model. In 1994 and 1996, People magazine named her to its “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” list. She added to her acting résumé in 1995 with her first feature film role, John Singleton’s Higher Learning.

In 1996, Banks broke down barriers when she became the first African American woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. That year, she also became the first Black woman on the cover of GQ magazine and the Victoria’s Secret catalog. The next year, she returned to the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. In 1997, Banks was named Supermodel of the Year by VH1.

Banks branched out into writing in 1998, publishing a self-help book titled Tyra’s Beauty Inside and Out. The book offered advice on self-esteem, beauty, and fashion. Banks returned to acting in 2000 with the made-for-television Disney film Life-Size with Lindsay Lohan and the feature film Coyote Ugly. In 2002, she appeared in the horror film Halloween: Resurrection.

In May 2003, Banks launched the popular reality competition show America’s Next Top Model on UPN (later the CW network). Serving as executive producer, host, and judge, Banks led aspiring models through a series of challenges related to the world of high fashion. Each season’s winner received a modeling contract, among other prizes. In 2005, Banks officially retired from modeling after walking the runway at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. That year, The Tyra Banks Show premiered on CBS. The talk show, which ran in syndication until May 2010, focused on women’s issues. In 2008 and 2009, the show won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informative Talk Show. Beyond modeling and television, Banks has also appeared in numerous music videos, including Michael Jackson’s “Black & White,” Tina Turner’s “Love Thing,” and George Michael’s “Too Funky.” In 2004, Banks recorded a dance single, “Shake Ya Body.” As the 2000s drew to a close, she also made cameo appearances in films such as Mr. Woodcock (2007), Tropic Thunder (2008), and Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009).

In 2014, Banks began her own beauty products company, Tyra Beauty, which originally only sold products through its website. However, by 2015, Banks had announced that the company, like longtime industry leader Mary Kay, was moving into direct selling and was beginning to enroll individuals as "beautytainers" to sell the eye, face, and lip products. That same year, Banks made changes in her life as a television personality that she claimed were in part due to her devotion to growing and managing the new cosmetics company. In the fall, she announced that America's Next Top Model's long run would be coming to an end in December, following the conclusion of its twenty-second season. At the same time, she departed from her position as a cohost on the new roundtable lifestyle talk show FABLife after only two months on the program; while she cited needing to focus on Tyra Beauty as a reason, the media also reported that she had felt a dissatisfaction with limitations on her creative role in the show. In January 2016, Disney/ABC announced that it was canceling the show, which had also included Chrissy Teigen, Joe Zee, Leah Ashley, and Lauren Makk as hosts. At the same time, Banks also told interviewers that she had several other television projects in the works. Between 2017 and 2018, she replaced Nick Cannon as the host for the variety show America's Got Talent's twelfth and thirteenth seasons, and in 2018 she appeared in the sequel Life-Size 2. As America's Next Top Model had also been brought back on a different channel, she returned as host for its 2018 season. Following the departure of hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews, in 2020 she stepped in as the new host of the long-running reality series Dancing with the Stars and was also given a role as an executive producer.

Banks and her boyfriend at the time, Erik Asla, announced the arrival of their baby boy, York, via gestational surrogate, in January 2016.

Significance

Banks rose to international fame as a supermodel during the 1990s. She broke down racial barriers in the White-dominated fashion industry and then parlayed her fame into a lucrative film and television career. As a Black American and a woman, Banks’s success in the entertainment industry—both in front of the camera and behind the scenes as a producer—makes her an important role model.

Bibliography

Banks, Tyra, and Vanessa Thomas Bush. Tyra’s Beauty Inside and Out. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Print.

Jensen, Erin. "'I Go Toward Risk': 'DWTS' Host Tyra Banks on Critics, Tom Bergeron's 'Big Shoes to Fill.'" USA Today, 12 Oct. 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2020/10/12/dancing-with-the-stars-tyra-banks-critics-tom-bergeron/5937479002/. Accessed 22 July 2021.

Levin, Pamela. Tyra Banks. Philadelphia: Chelsea, 2000. Print.

Raphel, Adrienne. "America’s Next Top Instagram Celebrity." Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Group, 5 Aug. 2015. Web. 8 Mar. 2016.

Schweitzer, Karen. Tyra Banks. Philadelphia: Mason Crest, 2009. Print.

Sullivan, Otha Richard, and James Haskins. African American Millionaires. Hoboken: Wiley, 2005. Print.