Tyra Lynne Banks (born December 4, 1973) is an American
model, talk show
host,
actress,
singer and
businessperson.
[ ABC News: Tyra Banks Experiences Obesity Through Fat Suit][Tyra Banks On It - Forbes.com] She first became famous as a model in
Paris,
Milan,
London,
Tokyo and
New York, but television appearances were her commercial breakthrough. Banks is the creator and host of the
reality television show
America's Next Top Model. She also hosts her own
talk show,
The Tyra Banks Show.
Early life
Banks was born in
Inglewood,
California, the daughter of Carolyn (
née London), a fashion manager and NASA photographer, and Donald Banks, a computer consultant.
[Tyra Banks Biography (1973-)] The couple divorced in 1990, when Banks was 16 years old; although, the relationship of her parents, and especially her brother Devin Banks (born 1968), stayed friendly. Later, Carolyn married Clifford Johnson; she now goes by Carolyn London-Johnson. Banks attended
John Burroughs Middle School and graduated in 1991 from
Immaculate Heart High School in
Los Angeles. She was accepted by colleges such as
USC and
UCLA for television
producing.
[Tyra Banks: America's Next Top Mogul][www.imdb.com/title/tt1225232/]
Career
Modeling
Banks began modeling in the 11th grade.
["Banksable" by Lynn Hirschberg, New York Times, June 1, 2008] She later went to
Paris,
France to do some
runway modeling. Within Banks' first week in Paris, designers were so entranced by her presence on the runway that she was booked for an unprecedented twenty-five shows - a record in the business for a newcomer. She has done extensive print and/or runway work for fashion/advertising giants, such as
Anna Sui,
Coors Light,
CoverGirl,
Badgley Mischka,
Bill Blass,
Cynthia Rowley,
Chanel,
Christian Dior,
Dolce & Gabbana,
Donna Karan, Gemma Kahng,
H&M,
Isaac Mizrahi, Maria Snyder,
McDonald's, Aislinn Dubois Modeling Agency,
Michael Kors,
Milk,
Nicole Miller,
Nike, Inc.,
Oscar de la Renta,
Pepsi,
Perry Ellis, Randy Kemper,
Richard Tyler,
Rifat Ozbek,
Swatch,
Todd Oldham,
Tommy Hilfiger,
Victoria's Secret and
Yves Saint Laurent. She has appeared on the covers of high-fashion magazines such as
Vogue,
Harper's Bazaar,
Cosmopolitan and
Elle.
Banks was the first
African American woman on the covers of
GQ and the
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
[Tyra Banks Profile in the FMD-database. Accessed 2008-06-11.] In 1997, she received the
VH1 award for Supermodel of the Year. That same year, she became the first-ever African American chosen for the cover of the
Victoria's Secret catalog. Banks was featured in a
Playboy May 1997 pictorial on supermodels with
Naomi Campbell,
Cindy Crawford,
Jennifer Driver,
Eva Herzigová,
Iman,
Elle Macpherson,
Kate Moss,
Shana Phipps,
Claudia Schiffer,
Stephanie Seymour and
Amber Smith.
Claudia Schiffer was on the cover.
Banks retired from modeling in May 2005 to concentrate on her television career. She walked the runway for the final time at the 2005
Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.
Move into television and film
Banks' television career began on the fourth season of
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which she played lead character
Will Smith's old friend
Jackie Ames. She made seven appearances in the series. Other TV credits include
Felicity,
MADtv,
Nick Cannon's Wild 'n Out (in which she was featured as a special guest host and team captain) and
The Price Is Right (guest-starring as a "
Barker's Beauty"). She also appeared as a guest in the animated talk show
Space Ghost Coast to Coast in an episode entitled "Chinatown."
Currently, Banks can be seen on television as the hostess, judge and executive producer of
The CW Television Network show
America's Next Top Model. In addition, she hosts
The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime
talk show aimed at younger women, which premiered on September 12, 2005. The show features stories about everyday people mixed in with celebrity interviews, much like the early format of
The Oprah Winfrey Show. Under the slogan "Every woman has a story...and it happened to Tyra too," Banks promotes her show using emotional flashbacks to her own childhood and adolescence. Many of the episodes deal with issues facing women today. Banks and other experts give women advice on fashion, relationships and more. The first two seasons of the show were recorded in Banks' hometown of
Los Angeles, but beginning with the fall 2007 season, the show moved to
New York City. In 2008, Banks won the
Daytime Emmy Award for her work and production on
The Tyra Banks Show.
In late-January 2008, Banks got the go-ahead from The CW Television Network to start work on a new reality television series based on fashion magazines called
Stylista. The show premiered on October 22, 2008.
Banks' first big screen role came in 1994 when she co-starred in the drama
Higher Learning. She went on to co-star with
Lindsay Lohan in the
Disney film
Life-Size, playing a doll named Eve who comes to life and has to learn how to live in the real world. Other notable roles include
Love Stinks (1999),
Love & Basketball (2000),
Coyote Ugly (2000) and
Halloween: Resurrection (2002).
Books
In 1998, Banks authored a book entitled
Tyra's Beauty, Inside and Out. The book was advertised as a resource for helping women to make the most out of their natural beauty.
[Tyra Banks and Books]
Music
Banks has appeared in several music videos, including
Michael Jackson's "
Black or White",
Tina Turner's "
Love Thing",
Mobb Deep's "Trife Life" and
George Michael's "
Too Funky" (with fellow supermodel
Linda Evangelista). In 2004, she recorded her first single, "Shake Ya Body," which had a music video featuring the final six contestants on
America's Next Top Model, Cycle 2.
[1] The video was world-premiered on
UPN, but the single turned out to be a failure. On
America's Next Top Model, Cycle 2 Banks said, "Singing has been a passion of mine for a long, long time...six years on the down low - been ducking in and out of studios cutting tracks. Later, on her talk show, she said, "I can't believe I wasted six years of doing something that I didn't finish...I was almost able to release my album
T.Y.R.A., but since my music career hit rock bottom, I quit."
Though "Shake Ya Body" was a failure, record producer
Rodney Jerkins told
Jet magazine in 2004 that Banks "has what it takes to pull it off...she had a hungriness to want to be in the studio all the time. Some people want to be divas in the studio and work for three or four hours. You had to tell Tyra to stop, or she will keep you going."
[Christian, Margena A.. "Tyra Banks: creator of TV's 'America's next top model' tells why singing is her next move". Jet. March 1, 2004. Retrieved February 23, 2007.] As for her voice, Jerkins said, "People will be shocked. She can really sing. She's like between
soprano and high-
alto. I challenged her vocally. I pushed her, but not too far. I pushed her where vocally it fit the track."
Banks released a single with
NBA player
Kobe Bryant, entitled "K.O.B.E.," which was performed on
NBA TV. She also had a single on the
Disney movie
Life-Size called "Be A Star." She is credited with performing the theme song to
America's Next Top Model.
Personal life
Banks dated former
NBA player
Chris Webber for three years, before breaking up in 2004. She devoted an entire show to the subject of "Professional Athletes and the Women Who Love Them" on her talk show in November 2006.
Banks is currently living with model and friend Amber Rives in
New York City.
[www.neoows.com/tags/index.jsp?tag=Amber%20Rives][splashnewsonline.celebuzz.com/tyrabanks/][virtualglobetrotting.com/map/56699/]
Filmography
Film
Television
- Where There's a Will, There's a Way: Part 1
- All Guts, No Glory
- Father of the Year
- Blood Is Thicker Than Mud
- Fresh Prince After Dark
- Take My Cousin... Please
- You've Got to Be a Football Hero
- Hubris
- Outrage
- Just Shoot Me
| 1999
| Felicity | Jane Scott | TV series
- A Good Egg
- Kissing Mr. Covington
- One Ball, Two Strikes
|
| 2000 | MADtv | Katisha Latisha Parisha Farisha Johnson | TV series
- Episode #5.25
- Episode #5.17
|
| 2003-present | America's Next Top Model | Host | Reality TV series created, judged and hosted by Banks
|
| 2004 | American Dreams | Carolyn Gill | TV series
|
| All of Us | Roni | TV series
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
|
| 2005 | The Tyra Banks Show | Host | Talk show
|
