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Tyra Banks
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dcrim

By dcrim
in Female Fashion Models

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funnyfan

funnyfan

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Posted
ohhhhhh I love Tyra, why does she wanna quit for TV? she is one if the greatest models ever.......  :cry:

I cant even see her show  :cry:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't worry, you'll still she plenty of her! Even if she's not going to modeling anymore, she's still trying to make it as a celebrity and will still show up in a lot of mags promoting her shows and what not... :)

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happycanadian2

happycanadian2

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Posted

From model to role model

Tyra Banks is retiring her wings to focus on Phase Two of her career, writes Maria Elena Fernandez

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Tyra Banks is retiring her wings to focus on Phase Two of her career, writes Maria Elena Fernandez

When Tyra Banks sashayed down the Victoria's Secret catwalk in trademark Angel wings for the last time Wednesday, she traded in her image as a glamorous supermodel in favor of her new calling: a down-home, just-one-of-the- girls media star.

Banks, who turns 32 next month and probably could pose in US$10 million (HK$78 million) diamond-jeweled bras for a few more years, is quitting modeling, she says, while "the phone is still ringing."

But that's not the only reason the first black woman to land the covers of GQ, the Victoria's Secret catalog and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is stepping off the runway now. Banks is busy trying to build the media empire she has been dreaming about since she began her modeling career in Paris as a teenager.

"Phase Two" is what she likes to call this new career chapter, which includes her hit UPN reality show franchise, America's Next Top Model, and her two-month-old - and so far, modestly successful - syndicated talk show, The Tyra Banks Show.

It's an ambitious and in some ways unlikely transformation for Banks, who became a celebrity based on her almost unreal beauty and who now promotes herself as a real woman who's not afraid to confess her own flaws and insecurities. Forget the past, Banks says what we're seeing now is the true Tyra Banks.

"The beginning of my modeling career was about myself," Banks said. "It was about how many covers can I get, or how many doors can I knock down - because so many people were telling me as a black model I wouldn't be able to accomplish certain things and I wouldn't be successful in the fashion industry - so it was all about me, me, me, me!

"And now with the young girls that write me about their insecurities and how they say that me being open and honest helps them has brought me here to this place. So instead of me, me, me - of course, it's still my show, it's still my name on the show - now with the success I've had, I have the power to change. It's using all of that to give back."

The way that Banks goes about it, with her hey-girlfriend style and confessional approach, appeals to the multicultural women who laugh and cry with her on her show when she reveals what a romantic breakup felt like, makes fun of her cellulite and removes all of her makeup on camera.

"I saw her walk onto the stage, and she was so much skinnier than I had expected," said Malinda Eubanks of San Diego. "But then she sits down and starts to interview someone and she leans over and she has this fat roll over her pants, and I'm like, `She's human."'

But Banks' keeping-it-real manner does not sit well with many critics who have wondered if Banks' talk show has become a narcissistic forum for working out her personal issues: Banks has undergone an on-stage sonogram to prove that she does not have breast implants and confronted a porn actress who goes by the name of Tyra Banxxx.

And she has invited longtime rival Naomi Campbell to air out their differences on the Friday show.

"I've done that throughout my whole entire career, actually, as a model," Banks said. "I would do a Victoria's Secret interview, and I might tell the interviewer about my cellulite.

"But I think on the talk show, because it's my show, it's standing out a lot more. When I show photos before and after retouching, I still like the after.

"I'm still a victim of this society and what's considered beautiful. So if I have control over a photo, I will clean that up, fix that up. But I feel it's my responsibility to say this ain't real, this is entertainment. This is an image, but this ain't me."

To that end, Banks readily points out "my fake hair, my fake eyelashes" and on a recent episode lifted her dress to show her girdle to a young man in the audience who admitted to fantasizing sexually about her. Banks went so far as to tell the stunned man that she has cellulite on her buttocks, a main topic on an upcoming episode.

Her breasts, however, are another matter, and Banks admits it's one rumor she has not been able to shake. (Indeed, a Google search for "Tyra Banks breasts" brings up 491,000 entries).

"It was about feeling frustrated that people thought this and I'm selling bras to little girls and women and I didn't do this! I didn't do this! This is what nature gave me," she said.

"It's easy to say to myself, `I don't care.' But whenever I hear it, it really gets to me. And it's not because I have something against implants. If you want to buy it, go ahead. This hair? It ain't mine. No big deal."

The media backlash - the stories that claimed that this show, in which Banks ordered the men in the audience to leave so a doctor on stage could give her a checkup and compare her sonogram to another woman's who did have implants, was a self-absorbed ratings stunt - surprised Banks.

"The show was 100 percent personal, but I didn't think it would be as big as it was," she said. "It was just something I wanted to do and now I feel so good. If anybody writes or says that I'm fake, I couldn't care less anymore."

Banks got teary during the episode - and there's a good reason for that, explains her mother, Carolyn London, who has worked alongside her daughter for 15 years and appears on the talk show regularly.

"It was just one more area of showing that she's human and that she has feelings," London said. "For her, it was a cleansing, an opportunity... Everything she's doing is an effort to wipe away the mystique, the whole thing about being a model."

Banks said letters and e-mails poured in from girls and women who were touched by her revelations of insecurity and self-doubt in her 1998 book, Tyra's Beauty Inside & Out.

In it, Banks told stories of feeling desperate at age 11 when she unexplainably lost 18 kilograms after reaching her 1.82-meter frame and everyone thought she had an eating disorder.

Later, after her body filled out and she had moved to Paris at 17 to become a fashion model, she was criticized in the industry for her large forehead ("they called it a fivehead") and her voluptuousness. Translation: "I was too fat." "I go in and out of insecurity like everyone else," Banks said.

Banks' ongoing dialogue with her readers motivated her to create T Zone, a self-esteem-building summer camp for 13- and 14-year-old girls.

Her work with "my girls" at T Zone, coupled with the reality TV craze, led Banks to develop America's Next Top Model, the show that helped turn UPN in 2003 from a men's network (think wrestling and Star Trek) to one that appealed to young women.

A fan of The Real World, who wished that American Idol filmed the singers behind the scenes of their performances, Banks said the idea to blend those two shows in the world of modeling "hit me in my face" one morning while she was making tea.

Her agent was skeptical, but UPN President Dawn Ostroff bought the show in a matter of hours. In its fifth cycle, the show is No1 in its time slot among 18- to 34-year-old women.

"The core of America's Next Top Model is about who you are inside and breaking down all the barriers for these girls so they can get to know their real selves and let the real them come out and blossom," Ostroff said.

The first season wasn't easy for Banks, who says even members of her staff disrespected her because they expected her to act like a "stupid supermodel."

"People who worked for me came up and apologized after seeing that I was in the editing bay every single day and that the show was very successful."

The show's success helped Telepictures Productions sell Banks' syndicated talk show, which is available in 90 percent of US markets, said Telepictures president Jim Paratore.

Paratore and his staff started talking to Banks about hosting her own daily talk show about five years ago when she was appearing monthly on Oprah.

"We were sold on Tyra before Top Model, but it did help us sell other people on buying the show - not only because of the popularity and the ratings but because she basically redefined the UPN network," Paratore said.

"There's not a lot of people like Tyra who have the ability to cross over from topics with real people ... and then also sit down and feel comfortable with a celebrity or go out and do a field tape bit."

LOS ANGELES TIMES

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megkween

megkween

Posted
Posted
hey megkween,

those are screencaps from a movie called "Inferno" (1992). It was made for t.v. and was about an author trying to get through his writer's block or something. . .but he had too many distractions ----- in the form of Tyra, Helena Christensen, Eva Herzigova, Kate Moss, and a few others.

oohh ok! thanks for clearing that up :)

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