by Tyra Banks
Tyra: One day, I was walking through the Beverly Center mall (the same site of my infamous first kiss), when someone came running up to me and said he worked for Guess. “We think you should model, so call us,” he said. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, nothing was cooler than the Guess ads with bombshells like Claudia Schiffer and Stephanie Seymour, and this about blew my mind (though in retrospect, whoever claimed to be from Guess was probably lying, ’cause they weren’t putting no black girls in Guess ads in 1989). I never called them because I imagined being taken advantage of by some crime spree model mafia, but it got me thinking. . . .
One of Mama’s and my early shoots in our living room—I was fifteen, and this was clearly before I learned how to truly WERK it!
Carolyn: To my surprise, Tyra eventually decided she’d give the modeling thing a try. “If it works,” she said, “maybe I can make a little extra money for college.”
“Do it, baby,” I said immediately. “Aren’t you lucky that you’ll have your very own private photographer and darkroom technician? Who just happens to be yo’ mama! This is going to be fun!” Since I could shoot the photos, process the film, and develop the prints myself, we were rhet to go right away and didn’t even have to worry about a budget!
When I was working as the director of the medical media department at the hospital and shooting fashion on the side.
Tyra: The first shoot we did was in the back of our apartment building. It wasn’t really a yard, just a storage space for all the trash cans, with a humongous avocado tree that was always dropping fruit and making the sidewalks slick with green mush.
Mama did my makeup, a red lip with very little eyeshadow, and slicked my hair back into a bun (flauntin’ that fivehead from day one!). I wore a black blazer and pear-shaped cubic zirconia earrings, and sat on a narrow set of red stairs that ran up to the apartment above us. The stairs were partially dry-rotted, full of splinters, and covered with peeling paint, and Mama had to move all over the place to make sure she didn’t get any of the trash cans in the shot. Occasionally I’d have to swat a few avocado flies away. But the photos turned out good and went straight into my amateur portfolio. They were serene, regal‚ like a Mona Lisa for the YM generation.
Also, I was starting to forgive Mama for that disaster day in the medical office with Angel Locks. She gave me so many compliments along the way. “Oooh, baby girl, that is gorgeous. Turn right there. Perfect! We’re getting that golden hour light!”
She did think I was beautiful.
Wow.
The first portfolio shot that Mama and I ever did—trash cans and rotting avocados just out of frame.
Carolyn: We went to a bridge downtown in East L.A. that was a favorite spot for photographers, because you got this light that looked like it was filtering down straight from heaven. Of course, to take advantage of that light, you had to dodge all the drug dealers and vagabonds who were shouting at you (it probably wasn’t the best place for two women to be prancing around), but we did get some outstanding shots of Tyra on the railroad tracks. And to my surprise, my girl could move! Jumping, twisting, prancing, dancing. Click. Click. Click.
She was better than all the models I shot. I was confused by the quick turnaround. But I was one happy mama, cuz my baby looked so happy.
Tyra could move! I love these shots I took of her in downtown L.A., jumping and twisting all over the place.
Tyra: For that shoot, Mama put a fake braid on me, and a smoky eye. I wore a white peasant shirt, big hoop earrings, Levi’s, and those cowboy shoe-boots. It was a ’90s ensemble that would have made Lisa Bonet drool. (Yeah, Zoë, I was channeling your mama!)
We shot anywhere and everywhere, and Mama’s inner Steven Meisel was flourishing. She was a connoisseur of light, even hauling my ass outta bed at the crack of dawn so that we could go to Souplantation (a buffet restaurant that sells—you guessed it!—lotsa soup) on Wilshire Boulevard before it opened to shoot at an exterior table with the dusty dawn streaming in lovely under the cantilevered roof, hitting me wearing a sailor shirt and a dusty vintage pillbox hat with faux crumpled flowers intertwining on the crown.
Carolyn: I always had my camera with me, so if we were driving and something caught my eye, we’d pull over and do an impromptu shoot. When we passed a courtyard with an electric blue door on Western Avenue, we just pulled up to the curb and hopped out to get some shots on the way home from the grocery store.
This was way before Instagram and fashion blogging, so people weren’t used to seeing photo shoots on every corner. Traffic would slow, and people would crane their necks out their windows, trying to get a glimpse of the action and wondering what in the hell these two crazy ladies were up to.
An example of the gorgeous light at Souplantation (with a prop muffin Mama brought from home).
Me looking sad because it’s 5:45 a.m. and I’m realizing that modeling involves a lot of predawn call times.
Trying to keep my composure and not get distracted by the kids playing right out of the frame.
Tyra: We lived on Hudson Avenue, a street that spanned multiple socioeconomic levels. Five blocks north of our apartment, it was mansions. Five blocks south, it was the hood, our part of Hudson. So Mama and my fifteen-year-old self headed north, to Hancock Park, and took pictures in the middle of the street while all the rich people probably sipped their morning coffee, peering out their windows wondering if they should enjoy the impromptu photo shoot view or call the cops.
Dodging traffic on the rich part of Hudson Avenue.
Carolyn: We’d also stand on all kinds of sidewalks and wait for the traffic to pass, then scramble out to take some pictures and sprint back to the sidewalk before we got hit by a Mack truck or Mercedes. (Don’t try this at home!) From looking at the photographs, though, you would never know it was guerrilla-style. Tyra looks poised and sophisticated, like she’s the Queen of Beverly Hills (or the Fresh Princess of Bel-Air), when really, we were just right around the corner from the fake mastodons drowning in the gurgling, stinky La Brea Tar Pits.
A shoot we did at the La Brea Tar Pits—my hair wasn’t cut like that; I just happened to swing my head at the moment Ma took the photo. And yeah, I styled myself. Don’t hate.
Tyra: The rich part of Hudson Avenue was two minutes and twenty worlds away from the ummm . . . not so rich part. As Mama and I played dodge ’em with the traffic, tryna get our shots before those crazy L.A. drivers flattened us like bubble gum, I had no idea that these photos were the very beginning of a career that would someday make it possible for me to live in the kind of houses we were shooting in front of: not a condo, apartment, or house, but a full-on Dynasty-style mansion.
Obviously, I forgave Mama for that disaster of a day in the medical photography studio. She hadn’t meant any harm, and it was clear to me now that she more than believed in me. Mama was my number one supporter. We were ready to do this.
For real.
Carolyn: Tyra had made a list of the top ten modeling agencies, so we started at the top.
Maybe the beret was a bit of foreshadowing, ’cause it wasn’t too long after I took this pic that Tyra was heading to Paris.
Tyra: You’d walk into an agency, show your portfolio, then they’d look at it and tell you what was wrong with you. That was how I got introduced to some of the most broken feelings I’ve ever had in my entire life.
Carolyn: It took everything I had to keep myself from jumping over the counter and throttling these people. I was like, “What the hell are you talking about? Everywhere we go, people are telling her she should be a model, and then we get here and you tell her she doesn’t have it? And needs to leave immediately?!”
I had to bite my tongue and keep my fightin’ words to myself, because I could not believe the way these agents talked to Tyra and the other girls who came to see them. It was like they weren’t even
human.
Tyra would sit stone-faced listening to this cold, hard rejection, and I’d sit next to her, squeezing her hand or rubbing her back, doing anything I could to make it hurt less.
Tyra: Someone would take a look at my book for all of 2.5 seconds, then snap it shut and hand it back to me with a shake of the head.
“Well?” I’d ask.
“Your lips are too poochy.”
“Huh? You won’t sign me because my lips are too poochy?”
“And your feet are major flat.”
“I need arches to model?”
“And your eyes are too far apart.”
“What?”
“And don’t even get me started on your calves.”
“What about my calves?”
“They are clearly not in proportion to your thighs.”
“So that’s it?”
“Well, I could go on.” She’d clear her throat. “If you want me to. . . .”
I did not. These were all kinds of crazy things that I had never even thought to be insecure about, and it left me in a daze, like I could barely follow what they were saying.
Others would put tight little smiles on their faces and say, “We already have a black girl.” When they did that, it was almost like they expected me to nod and agree: “OMG, I am so sorry I even asked! Why, with two signed black girls, we’d revolt and take over the agency!”
Even the agency who represented Angel Locks turned me down. That hurt. Deep.
But I’d take it like an ice queen, then bawl my too-far-apart eyes out as soon as we got back to the car.
Carolyn: With my big, unfiltered mouth, as soon as we got back outside after those appointments, I’d let loose with the mother-effers this and the mother-effers that. “Don’t you worry a bit, baby,” I told Tyra. “They’re the ones who are losing out.” Though truth be told, after the fifth no, I wanted her to stop. “Screw this,” I thought. “She’s going to college and leaving this whole modeling mess behind.”
Tyra: For a lot of girls, that first no is all it takes. They’re done with modeling after that. And often, I don’t blame them. More power to them, even, because they know themselves and know that this cutthroat business is not for them. ’Cause the rejection you’re going to face as a working model is one hundred times worse than the rejection you will get just trying to get signed.
I always tell people, “Just ’cause you look like a model doesn’t mean you gotta be one.” You can’t just have the look—you have to have the strength and fortitude to fight rejection every single day. That’s why you hear so many sad stories about models’ paths going scarily wrong.
But me . . . I was ready to fight.
“Come on, Mama,” I said. “Let’s just do one more.”
So we walked into LA Models.
Carolyn: First, they looked through every single photo in her portfolio. I kept expecting them to bring out a giant Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass for all the scrutinizing they were doing, so that they could get in there with a good look at her pupils.
Then they made her walk back and forth across the room. And do it again. And do it again. And again. It was like watching a tennis match, back and forth, back and forth, and I was getting dizzy just watching.
Finally, they told her she could stop pacing, but to just keep standing there. The agent we were meeting with started calling in other agents so that they could check Tyra out. They walked around her like she was cattle up for auction and they were tryna decide if they wanted to bid.
I was sitting on my hands and biting my tongue, getting more anxious by the minute. By now, I’d had enough of these people carving my daughter up, and this dissection had pushed me past my limit. I was just about to grab Tyra’s hand and drag her out of there when they said, “OK, we’ll sign you.”
What?
I couldn’t believe it.
“Just for runway work,” they said. “Because you don’t have the face for photos.”
It was a stinging, backhanded compliment. What the hell were these fools talking about? She had a whole book of good photos! I’d been taking her picture all over town and she was getting better and better. I mean, she moved in front of the camera like a hip-hop ballerina star! I wasn’t just saying that ’cause I was her mama, either (remember that first shoot with Angel Locks?).
So she’d gotten signed, and hell, I still wanted to clobber them.
Tyra: Mama was pissed, but I figured I had my (very flat) foot in the fashion door, and I’d just keep wiggling until it opened even more. LA Models was the only agency in town that was willing to give me a chance, and I still have a warm relationship today with Chrysta, the head of their runway division (I still look lovingly at the bus stop outside of their old office on Sunset Boulevard, next to the chili dog restaurant Carneys, every time I drive by). Shoot, I even started to do more than just fashion shows. A little catalog job here. A little second-rate magazine there. But eventually, it was time for me to move on, and it wasn’t too long after I signed with a new agency (well it was probably about a year, but “wasn’t too long” sounds so much better and more gangsta) that I and my not-fit-for-a-camera face got booked for a top magazine. Seventeen magazine, to be exact.
Even though I’d shot the photos, there was no guarantee that they’d make it into the magazine. Mama’s and my rule was you have not booked the job until you are on the set, and you are not in the pictures until you see them printed and in your hands. Mama and I would be driving through the city when I’d spot a newsstand and make her cut across four lanes of traffic so that we could pull over on Robertson Boulevard, where I’d jump out and see if they had the new issue of Seventeen. Finally, one day, after a black BMW honked and gave Mama the finger as she swerved to get me to the curb, there it was. The new issue. I held my breath as I flipped through the pages, telling myself that I couldn’t be too disappointed if it wasn’t in there.
But there was sixteen-year-old me, staring back at sixteen-year-old glee! I did the running man right there on the sidewalk to celebrate. “You read it, you buy it!” the newsstand attendant yelled at me.
“Look!” I said, holding the spread up so he could see it. “It’s me! In a magazine!”
“Two dollars!” he said. I bought four.
We headed straight to the new agency so I could show them. You could see my smile coming a mile away, and as soon as I walked in, the receptionist asked me why I was so happy.
“Look!” I said, spreading open the magazine on her desk and pointing at my pictures. “I’m in Seventeen magazine! Can you believe that? My first agency said I didn’t have a face for camera.”
That chick must have been sharpening her claws right before I walked in, because she just smiled a tense little smile, like she was about to let me in on a dark secret. “Black models don’t have a chance in this industry,” she said. “So I suggest you learn to type, because next year you’ll be applying for my job.”
I hope she had fun making her words into a salad and eating ’em for lunch every damn day at her desk, ’cause it wasn’t too long after that when I went to Paris for my first season and booked twenty-five fashion shows. And two magazine covers. In three months.
Boom.
Carolyn: As excited as I was for Tyra that her teen modeling career had taken off, I had to admit there were parts of it that made me nervous. Some of those girls were just so gosh-darned skinny!
Tyra’s own preteen and teenage years had been the Matterhorn of painful emotion because of her weight (more specifically, her lack thereof). She had been so unhappy in her skinny phase, and had struggled with so many self-esteem issues because of it. I’d seen her suffer, and I hated the thought that she might feel pressure to force herself back into that zone of battlin’ her body instead of lovin’ it. She was healthy and happy now, and I wanted her to stay that way.
But healthy and happy wasn’t e
xactly the norm in the modeling world.
Backstage was always a flurry of nakedness, as girls would have just seconds to throw off one look and get into another, and what I saw back there frightened me: They were skeletons in silk slip dresses and winged eyeliner. I saw girls whose rib cages jutted out sharply enough that it looked like you might cut yourself if you went to give them a hug. When they’d bend over, their spines would look like some sort of medical photograph I’d taken, each vertebra so visible beneath their skin. And they weren’t just skinny; they were hungry, too. I swear, if I had tossed a chicken wing into the middle of the room, some of them woulda ripped each other’s wigs off to get at it. Not to eat it—no, no, no, too many calories—just to smell and maybe lick it to remind themselves what food tasted like.
The industry put a lot of pressure on these girls and never let them forget that the bigger they got, the smaller their paychecks got. They weren’t starving themselves just to stay thin; they were trying to hold on to their livelihood. (Remember that before you choose to write a nasty comment on a superthin model’s Instagram account. She’s either naturally thin or trying to desperately hold on to her job.)
