Tyra Banks Biography

Tyra Banks was born April 12, 1973, in Los Angeles, California. Tyra is an award winning model, accomplished actress and TV celebrity. Growing up in Los Angeles, Tyra was able to take full advantage of the Southern California lifestyle. Despite the fact that her parents divorced when she was very young, her mother and various family members instilled a high degree of family values and expectations. Her mother would read to her all the time, and Tyra Banks loved to read more than anything else. When she was a young girl, it was almost like an addiction for her. She could spend hours inside bookstores.

During her young teenage years, Tyra Banks was tall and bean-pole skinny, and constantly teased by her brother and her classmates because of her awkward appearance. During one three month period, she lost nearly 20 pounds and grew 2 inches. She was very tall for her age and her mother took her to the best doctors to try to find out what was wrong with her. The doctors said that she was perfectly healthy, and she became a "boring bookworm". She really didn't feel comfortable in her skinny body, so she ate a lot of fattening foods.

Tyra Banks worried constantly, when all the popular girls at her school had started to develop breasts and heaps, her body just stayed the same, straight and narrow! When Tyra turned 17 years old, she started to gain weight and developed some curves. That is when Tyra's self-esteem improved and her modeling career began to take shape. Tyra has the biggest boobs on the catwalk and they are real, she says. "I was a 34C when I was 17".

Her mother raised her to be mentally strong, and that's probably why she can stand the stress of the modeling industry. "I've been lucky enough to come from a really strong family, where I was taught only to compete with myself. My mom always told me, 'Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't do something'." Tyra Banks was used to getting into trouble in school. She would challenge her teachers because she thought that she was smarter than all of them. Her mother was constantly called to the principal's office. But, even though she was very mischievous, she always managed to get really good grades.

Tyra Banks moved to Paris for a year and modeled for many of the big names in fashion, including Ralph Lauren and Chanel. She returned to the States and continued modeling, working her way up through the ranks and diversify her activities. Tyra ambitiously took a small part in the British television movie "Inferno", as a supermodel, and then appearing on Will Smith's Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in a recurring supporting role. Her first real movie role came in John Singleton's "Higher Learning", where she played Omar Epps' track running girlfriend. Tyra Banks is definitely not just another supermodel playing at being an actress, she is the real thing. She even did some distance running training, in order to turn in a more believable performance. Tyra has made People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful" list not once, but twice, and even wrote a revealing book about her life, "Tyra's Beauty Inside & Out".

Tyra Banks loves to play tennis, golf, volleyball, basketball, bowling and snorkeling whenever she's in the Caribbean. When she's home in Los Angeles, she loves going to dinner with her friends that aren't in the entertainment industry. She was the first black model on the cover of Sports Illustrated and the first black woman and first model to be featured on the cover of GQ. She likes being part of modeling history and breaking barriers. Tyra is a true super star, with a very bright future.

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TYRA BANKS BIOGRAPHY