【明報專訊】Tyra Banks, model, was born on 4 December 1973 in California, the US.
Banks confessed that she was somewhat of a "mean girl" in middle school. However, a sudden growth spurt left her tall and gawky (笨拙), and her classmates gave her the cruel nickname "Giraffe".
By 1989, at the age of 17, Banks had outgrown her awkward phase and begun to resemble the tall, curvy, caramel-skinned and green-eyed beauty who would light up runways and magazine covers for years to come. However, her first attempts to find a modelling agency were met with rejection and discrimination. Banks remembers that one agency said she looked "too ethnic" and another said that it "already had a black woman and didn't want another". In 1990, while still in high school, Banks finally landed a contract with Elite Model Management.
Banks rose swiftly (迅速地) through the ranks of fashion modelling to become one of the world's top supermodels.
In 2003, Banks ventured into the world of reality TV when she created, produced and hosted America's Next Top Model (《全美超級模特兒新秀大賽》). Banks expanded into daytime television with her own talk show The Tyra Show in 2005.
- text provided by the Biography Channel
(now TV Channel 222)
