Tyra Banks: Media Mogul
© Lauren GreenfieldTyra Banks, 34, is an anomaly in her industry: she’s posed on TV in an unflattering bathing suit, dressed in rags to pose as a homeless person, and played basketball with Barack Obama. She publicly discloses her professional and personal foibles, and scribbles her “to do” lists on paper notebooks as an antidote to her “Blackberry addiction.” But she wears unorthodoxy well.
As of Fall 2008, Tyra will have three television shows on air (she produces two, and created all three), a production company with a record of international successes, and a modeling career that began in Paris when she was 19, landing on the runways of Yves St Laurent and Chanel. Producer, director, creator, model, actress, talk show host, media mogul and fashion icon, Tyra has created an empire of media success by virtue of her intelligence, beauty, and determination.
Both her talk show, “The Tyra Banks Show” and her reality competition show “America’s Next Top Model“ attract more than 13 million viewers weekly. The show invites 13 aspiring models to vie for a modeling contract with Cover Girl; they compete for places in an intense audition. In theme with her own rigorous career and ascent to the runway, Tyra critically grills the girls with tough love that’s been famously known to draw tears.
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