Tyra Banks: January 2012

Tyra Banks Biography

Tyra Lynne Banks (born December 4, 1973) is an American model, media personality, actress, occasional singer, author and businesswoman. Tyra Banks first became famous as a model, appearing twice on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and working for Victoria's Secret as one of their original Angels. Tyra Banks is the creator and host of the UPN/The CW reality television show America's Next Top Model, co-creator of True Beauty, and host of her own talk show, The Tyra Banks Show.

Tyra Banks

Early life

Tyra Banks was born in Inglewood, California. She is the daughter of Carolyn (née London; now London-Johnson), a medical photographer, and Donald Banks, a computer consultant. She has a brother, Devin, who is five years older. In 1980, when Tyra Banks was 6 years old, her parents divorced. Banks attended John Burroughs Middle School and graduated in 1991 from Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. She was accepted by USC and UCLA but declined to attend, instead pursuing a career in modeling. Tyra Banks is one of four African Americans and seven women to have repeatedly ranked among the world's most influential people by Time magazine.

Career

Modeling
Tyra Banks began modeling in the 11th grade. She later went to Paris, France to do some runway modeling and evolved into a world-renowned supermodel who has become a pioneer in the industry.

Tyra Banks was the first African American woman on the covers of GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. 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. She is one of the original Victoria's Secret Angels.

In 2010, Tyra Banks re-signed with her former modeling agency IMG Models. Tyra Banks is now a contributor of Vogue Italia,s website; "vogue.it".

Move into television and film
Tyra Banks's 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, All That, 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."

Tyra Banks started her own production company, Bankable Productions (at first called "Ty Ty Baby Productions"; she did not rename it till the second cycle of America's Next Top Model), which produced The Tyra Banks Show, America's Next Top Model, and the 2008 movie The Clique.

Tyra Banks

Tyra Banks is the hostess, judge and executive producer of The CW Television Network show America's Next Top Model. In addition, she hosted The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime talk show aimed at younger women, which premiered on September 12, 2005, and ran until May 28, 2010.

In 2008, Tyra Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for her work and production on The Tyra Banks Show, and won for the second time in a row for outstanding, informative talkshow. In 2010, Oprah Winfrey congratulated Tyra Banks for a good job done on her talkshow for inspiring and mentoring young women.

In late-January 2008, Tyra 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's first big screen role came in 1994, when she co-starred in the drama Higher Learning. She then co-starred 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). She and Miley Cyrus poke fun at the excesses of the Hollywood lifestyle with a battle over a pair of shoes in Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009).

Tyra Banks appeared in the fourth episode of the third season of Gossip Girl playing Ursula Nyquist, a larger-than-life actress who works with Serena.

Music
Tyra Banks has appeared in several music videos, including Michael Jackson's "Black or White", Tina Turner's "Love Thing", Mobb Deep's "Trife Life", George Michael's "Too Funky" (with fellow supermodel Linda Evangelista) and Lionel Richie's "Don't Wanna Lose You". 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. The video was world-premiered on UPN, but the single turned out to be a failure.

Tyra Banks

Tyra Banks released a single with NBA player Kobe Bryant, entitled "K.O.B.E.," which was performed on NBA TV. She also has a single on the soundtrack to Disney Channel's Original Movie Life-Size called "Be A Star."

Books
Tyra Banks announced in May 2010 that she would be writing a novel, titled Modelland, loosely based on her own modelling experience. Published September 2011, it is the first of a planned three-part series. On an interview with Good Morning America, Banks stated that Modelland is the story of four girls who are accepted into an "exclusive" modelling school in the world of Modelland.

In 1998, Tyra Banks authored a book entitled Tyra's Beauty, Inside and Out.