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Former supermodel Tyra Banks, a business student at Harvard

Source: Wikipedia

Further education

In 2011, Banks enrolled in the Owner/President Management Program (OPM) at the Harvard Business School.[19] The OPM is an executive management program designed for senior executives who are "major equity stakeholders in companies with annual sales of at least $5 million."[20]. The program takes place over three three-week periods, one a year for each of three years. The program fee for each year is, as of 2011, $31,000, for a total program cost of $93,000 for the nine-week program. Admission is selective and based on professional achievement. A college degree and standardized tests are not required for admission. Participants are not awarded degrees upon completion of the program.[20]
Tyra Banks
Born Tyra Lynne Banks
December 4, 1973 (1973-12-04) (age 37)
Inglewood, California, U.S.
Occupation Model
Actress
Talk show host
Years active 1993–present
Salary $23 million (2008)[1]
Height 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)[2]
Website
Tyra Banks web site
Tyra Lynne Banks (born December 4, 1973) is an American model, media personality, actress, occasional singer, and businesswoman.[3][4][5] 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 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.
In 2009, she was honored by Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) with the Excellence in Media Award.

Early life

Tyra Banks was born in Inglewood, California, the daughter of Carolyn (née London), a fashion manager and NASA photographer, and Donald Banks, a computer consultant.[3][6] The couple divorced in 1980, when Banks was 6 years old. However, the relationship between her parents, and between her and 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 USC and UCLA but declined to attend, instead pursuing a career in modeling.[7]

Career

Modeling

Banks began modeling in the 11th grade.[8] 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.[citation needed] 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, 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.[9] 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.[10]
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.[citation needed]
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.[11]
In 2010, Banks re-signed with her former modeling agency IMG Models.[12]

Move into television and film

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, 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 has also started her own production company Bankable Productions, which produced The Tyra Banks Show, America's Next Top Model, and the 2008 movie The Clique.
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. 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.[citation needed]
In 2008, Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for her work and production on The Tyra Banks Show.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
Banks's first big screen role came in 1994, when she co-starred in the drama Higher Learning.[13] 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). 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).
Banks appeared in the fourth episode of the third season of Gossip Girl[14] playing Ursula Nyquist, a larger-than-life actress who works with Serena.

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", 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. 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."[15]
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."[16] 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."[16]
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

Banks wrote a 3-book series titled Modelland.[17]

Filmography

Film
Year Film Role Notes
1995 Higher Learning Deja
1999 Love Stinks Holly Garnett
2000 Love & Basketball Kyra Kessler
Life-Size Eve Doll TV movie
Coyote Ugly Zoë
2002 Halloween: Resurrection Nora Winston
Eight Crazy Nights Victoria's Secret Gown Voice
2007 Mr. Woodcock Herself Cameo
2008 Tropic Thunder Herself Cameo
2009 Hannah Montana: The Movie Herself in Women's Shoe Department Cameo[18]
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1993 The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Jackie Ames TV series (credited as "Tyra")
  • 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
1999 Felicity Jane Scott TV series
  • A Good Egg
  • Kissing Mr. Covington
  • One Ball, Two Strikes
Just Shoot Me! Herself TV series
  • Nina Sees Red: Part 1
  • Nina Sees Red: Part 2
2000 MADtv Katisha Latisha Parisha Farisha Johnson TV series
  • Episode #5.17
  • Episode #5.25
2003–present America's Next Top Model Host Reality TV series created, judged and hosted by Banks
2004 American Dreams Carolyn Gill TV series
  • Chasing the Past
All of Us Roni TV series
  • O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2005–2010 The Tyra Banks Show Host Talk show
2009 Gossip Girl Ursula Nyquist TV series,season 3
  • Dan de Fleurette

Further education

In 2011, Banks enrolled in the Owner/President Management Program (OPM) at the Harvard Business School.[19] The OPM is an executive management program designed for senior executives who are "major equity stakeholders in companies with annual sales of at least $5 million."[20]. The program takes place over three three-week periods, one a year for each of three years. The program fee for each year is, as of 2011, $31,000, for a total program cost of $93,000 for the nine-week program. Admission is selective and based on professional achievement. A college degree and standardized tests are not required for admission. Participants are not awarded degrees upon completion of the program.[20]

Philanthropy

In 1999, Tyra Banks established the TZONE program, which aimed at leadership and life skills development. The program was created for the primarily disadvantaged teen girls in the greater Los Angeles area, and involves sending teens to a week-long overnight camp outside of LA, where Tyra personally lived among and bonded with the campers.[21][22]
In 2005, TZONE transformed from a camp into a public charity, the Tyra Banks TZONE Foundation, with a mission which honors TZONE's camp origins, and seeks to create a larger “sisterhood” among girls and young women.[21] It makes grants to grassroot organizations, and supports organizations that serve women and girls ages 13–35.[23]
The Tyra Banks TZONE Foundation has offered several useful resources to a number of community nonprofits. The members of the foundation are empowered to take control of their lives by engaging in several productive activities such as filmmaking, community activism, dance, sports, leadership, writing, and even entrepreneurship at an early age. It encouraged girls to resist social pressures through a self-esteem building adventure.[21]
In November 2006, The TZONE foundation announced that it would award $10,000 each to both the Young Chicago Authors and also Women and Youth Supporting Each Other(WYSE).Young Chicago Authors provides creative writing workshops and public performance and publication opportunities for youth from a wide range of Chicago neighborhoods. The grant will support the GirlSpeak program, which builds the communication skills, leadership abilities and confidence of girls ages 13–19. WYSE is a national mentoring program that pairs female college students at 13 universities with at-risk middle school girls from under-served communities. The program helps girls make wise decisions about relationships, sexuality, health and their futures, and encourages the girls to apply this experience to effect change in their neighborhoods.[23]

References

  1. ^ Miller, Matthew (2008-06-11). "The Celebrity 100: #68 Tyra Banks". Forbes.com. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/53/celebrities08_Tyra-Banks_L5FY.html. Retrieved 2008-09-10 
  2. ^ "Tyra Banks Height - how tall". http://www.celebheights.com/s/Tyra-Banks-576.html. 
  3. ^ a b Jason Clark (2008). "Tyra Banks:Biography on MSN". MSN. http://movies.msn.com/celebrities/celebrity-biography/tyra-banks/. Retrieved 2008-07-18. 
  4. ^ "ABC News: Tyra Banks Experiences Obesity Through Fat Suit". http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/BeautySecrets/story?id=1280787. 
  5. ^ "Tyra Banks On It - Forbes.com". March 7, 2006. http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2006/0703/120.html. 
  6. ^ "Tyra Banks Biography". FilmReference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/26/Tyra-Banks.html. 
  7. ^ "Tyra Banks: America's Next Top Mogul". http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20178169,00.html. 
  8. ^ Hirschberg, Lynn (June 1, 2008). "Banksable". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/magazine/01tyra-t.html?ei=5124&en=6a5e98a9634a54f6&ex=1369972800&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=all. 
  9. ^ "Tyra Banks Profile". FMD-database. http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/models/Tyra_Banks. Retrieved 2008-06-11. 
  10. ^ Norment, Lynn (1997). "Tyra Banks: on top of the world - African American fashion model". Ebony. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_n7_v52/ai_19383832/. 
  11. ^ "Tyra Banks and Books". http://www.newyorktimesbestsellerlist.org/reviews/tyra-banks. 
  12. ^ [1] imgmodels.com. Retrieved on 2010-05-27.
  13. ^ "Tyra Banks' Bikini Body". http://www.shape.com/lifestyle/entertainment_and_celebrities/cover_models/tyra_banks_shape_cover. 
  14. ^ usmagazine.com
  15. ^ Biography of tyra Banks: Career
  16. ^ a b Christian, Margena A. (March 1, 2004). "Tyra Banks: creator of TV's 'America's next top model' tells why singing is her next move". Jet. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_9_105/ai_114007282. Retrieved February 23, 2007. 
  17. ^ Banks web site
  18. ^ "'Hannah Montana' Film Scenes Shot In Cool Springs Mall". NewsChannel 5.com. 2008-05-28. http://www.newschannel5.com/global/story.asp?s=8391689. 
  19. ^ Harvard Crimson, Tyra Banks Enrolls at Harvard Business School 2011-02-16. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
  20. ^ a b Harvard Executive Education Owner/President Management Program Retrieved 2011-03-13.
  21. ^ a b c TZONE Story. TZONE Foundation, accessed January 14th, 2011.
  22. ^ Tyra Bank's Faces of Philanthropy page. Faces of Philanthropy, accessed January 14th, 2011.
  23. ^ a b Tyra Banks' TZONE Foundation Celebrates National Philanthropy Day, Announcing Its First-Ever.... All Business, accessed January 14th, 2011.

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