Tyra Banks

Tyra Lynne Banks was born in Los Angeles, California on December 4, 1973. She is a model, spokesperson, television personality and reality show host.

Her modeling career began in the early 1990s and continued until 2005 when she retired from the runway. She has worked with some of the greatest photographers of our time and has modeled for nearly every important designer and some not so important designers. She has appeared on many magazine covers including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle. Banks was the first African American woman on the cover of both GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, as well as on the cover of Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

Banks has been in a number of feature films beginning with John Singleton’s Higher Learning, which starred Omar Epps and Ice Cube in 1995. In 2000, she made three films, Coyote Ugly with Piper Perabo, Maria Bello and Izabella Miko; Life-Size, in which she starred with a diminutive Lindsay Lohan; and Love & Basketball in which she worked with Omar Epps again.

Banks worked off and on in television for many years, which began with a reoccurring role on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which propelled Will Smith to stardom, and did two episodes of MADtv, the sketch comedy series in which she played Katisha Latisha Parisha Farisha Johnson. But her big break was delivered via a little show called, America’s Next Top Model, in 2003.

The show was created by Banks and she acts as executive producer. The show focuses of the lives of 10 to 14 contestants who all vie to be the next supermodel. It is consistently one of the top rated shows on television and has helped cement Tyra Banks’reputation as both a supermodel and supergoddess. Based on the success of ABTM, she was given her own talk show, The Trya Banks Show, which began in 2005 won Banks an Emmy Award and has been renewed until 2010.