Dress, Cucculelli Shaheen. Shoes, Manolo Blahnik. Earrings, Erickson Beamon. Rings, Meredith Marks
About half way through the consequential HBO documentary Donyale Luna: Supermodel, Beverly Johnson, the first Black model on the cover of American Vogue, appears on screen. She pauses suddenly, and then starts to cry.
It’s one of the most wrenching scenes in the film. You feel like the cameras should stop rolling.
Johnson is clearly having a deep emotional experience as she struggles to regain control of her feelings and continue the interview. “I’m not a crier”, she says into the camera, as she wrestles to come to terms with what she has just been told by the producer who is outside the frame: That legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland compared Luna to a gorilla.
Beverly Johnson recreates Luna’s iconic shoot. Dress, Alexander McQueen. Earrings, Schiaparelli
In that moment all the dismissals, neglect, abuse that Luna faced, culminating in her death at 33, washed over Johnson and reminded her of her own remarkable swim upstream.
She may not be a crier. But she’s an optimist, a competitor, a groundbreaker, an overcomer, a supermodel, an actor, author, mother, sister, wife, a business woman and by her own description, “a big mouth”.
One of the most relevant models of the mid-20th century, Johnson sits in the company of legendary supes like Twiggy, Naomi Sims, Cheryl Tiegs and Verushka. August will mark the 50th anniversary of her game-changing cover, and Johnson went on to grace hundreds more from Harper’s Bazaar to Cosmopolitan and yes, Vogue, again.
Suit, Sergio Hudson. Shoes, Jimmy Choo. Cuff, Pluma Italia. Necklace, ring, earrings, Alexis Bittar. Set, Paul Romano, R&M Manufacturing
Johnson’s round, brown face, lush lips, high cheekbones and warm demeanor, splashed across Vogue, forever changed the face of beauty. And unlike, say Tiegs, she could communicate all-American and sunny or haute and remote, as needed.
A tall, cool glass of creamy coffee (as the late editor André Leon Talley might say) her presence paved the way for Black women to see themselves more frequently, looking beautiful on and in magazines, embodied by models like Peggy Dillard (cover of Mademoiselle), Joyce Walker-Joseph (cover of Seventeen), Louise Vyent and Shari Belafonte (Harry’s daughter). Almost 12 months prior to Johnson’s breakthrough, black models tore it up in the famous Battle of Versailles, putting a new spotlight on African-American runway talents like Pat Cleveland and Billie Blair.
To celebrate her golden jubilee this year, Johnson, 71, staged a one-woman play Off-Broadway in New York City, co-written and produced with her friend, playwright Josh Ravetch.
Dress, Cucculelli Shaheen. Shoes, Manolo Blahnik. Earrings, Erickson Beamon. Rings, Meredith Marks
Beverly Johnson: In Vogue, which saw Johnson narrating her life in intimate detail while seated on stage, extended its initial two-week run.
She held nothing back.
“At this point in my life, I’m doing the things I want to”, said Johnson.
The show was a set piece for Johnson’s real life. In person, Johnson doesn’t dish about what you might expect: The photography giants she’s worked with – Penn, Scavullo; the princes of the rag trade whose clothes she flossed in – Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta; the magazines she’s appeared in; or even her memoir – a New York Times bestseller. She takes a wide lens and then zooms in on more dramatic happenings.
“I’m from the school of too much Information”, she said. “Don’t ask me if you don’t want to know how I’m doing” or who she’s doing it with.
She’s dated Wimbledon great Arthur Ashe, actor Chris Noth and was friends with Mike Tyson – who asked her for advice on marrying Robin Givens. “I knew it wasn’t going to work”, she said.
Gown/Cape, Dennis Basso. Necklace, Balmain. Earrings, IZA by Silva D’Avila (Flying Solo). Ring, Alexis Bittar
She’s rubbed shoulders with Elizabeth Taylor and acted opposite Hollywood heavyweights like Louis Gossett Jr.. She published the memoir in 2017 and even starred and executive-produced her own reality show Beverly’s Full House on OWN, Oprah Winfrey’s network.
Married to pioneering and controversial music manager Danny Sims, who helped discover Bob Marley and was the reggae superstar’s music publisher, she lived with Sims in Jamaica for a while during the Seventies, when she got to know Marley and his wife.
“Bob loved Rita”, said Johnson. (Bob Marley: One Love, the movie, broke box office records earlier this year). “They used to come to our house all the time”.
The only good thing that came out of her marriage during that period, as far as Johnson’s concerned, was her daughter Anansa Sims. She was devastated when she initially lost custody of Anansa to Sims. “He was a bad, bad man,” she now says of her ex. But she doesn’t dwell on it.
Dress, Bibhu Mohapatra. Shoes, Jimmy Choo. Earrings, Meredith Marks. Rings, Meredith Marks. Bracelets, Alexis Bittar
Today she and her daughter, who inherited her mother’s stunning looks and her father’s Bob Marley catalog, are very much a part of each other’s lives ,and Johnson dotes on her grandchildren. “I say to my daughter and my granddaughter – because she’s 12 and she’s popular – say yes to the possibilities because you don’t even know what you’re going to like”.
Dress, Alexander McQueen. Headpiece, AREA
Growing up with her parents and four siblings in Buffalo, New York, Johnson believed she was going to be a lawyer – until she was exposed to modeling.
Now as a mentor to several young men and women, who come to her for modeling and life advice, she says, “you don’t know what might come your way, so stay open to the possibilities. I don’t get hung up on kids or young men or ladies wanting to model”.
Johnsons adds, “it’s easy to say no, but when you say no, the scene is over. That’s what we learn in improv”. A new path that she’s quite enjoying is increasing demand for her services as a speaker to corporations, women’s groups and organizations.
In the last few years, her phone’s been buzzing again for modeling jobs, a response perhaps to her beauty and icon status but also the growing interest across the board in vibrant, mature women. Tommy Hilfiger x Zendaya, Bibhu Mohapatra and the exciting, new guard designer Sergio Hudson have all booked her for New York Fashion Week shows.
She relishes the pace.
“I have an addictive gene in my family I believe”, she said. “I’m positive I inherited it”.
Her father drank a bit, she said. But she expresses the addiction not through alcohol, but through her drive for work and activity.
“I get locked in”, said the supermodel. “That’s the discipline, the part of me that’s not going to let anyone and anything get in my way”.
Dress, Alexander McQueen. Hat, Saint Laurent. Shoes, Christian Louboutin
As a kid, her parents enrolled her and her siblings in all-black swim teams that competed against all-white teams with many more resources, in upstate New York, and it sharpened her competitive edge, she said.
When Johnson helped blow the lid off the widespread incidents of women’s sexual assault and harassment by exposing Bill Cosby’s crime, she had the bigger picture in mind. “It’s not about him”, she said. “I want to think about really big ideas like the future of humanity”.
She’s proud of the work she’s done supporting #MeToo, Sara Ziff and Ziff’s Model Alliance organization.
Johnson credits MA with helping to pave the way for E. Jean Carroll’s successful lawsuit against Donald Trump, as the group lobbied to extend the reporting window for claims of sexiual harassment and assault in New York.
She finds respite in doing photo shoots. “It’s refreshing”, she said.
Last year, she tied the knot for the third go. This one with her long-time beau financier Brian Mallian.
The couple live in Rancho Mirage, California, pleasingly close to her daughter and grandchildren. Johnson will co-star with Sims and Sims’ fiance, NBA champion and ESPN analyst Matt Barnes, in a new reality series The Barnes Bunch on WE tv about the couple’s blended family.
Johnson met Luna once, she recalled recently, at an agency in New York. “No one knew what she had to go through as a model here”, she mused.
Dress, Givenchy. Earrings, Meredith Marks. Bracelet, Pluma. Ring, Elsa Peretti. Shoes, Manolo Blahnik
“Your lips are too big, you’re too fat, you’re too short. Some people can take it and some people can’t. Eileen Ford said to me: ‘You’re too fat’. I was already working for Glamour!”
“She told me I would never be on the cover of Vogue”, Johnson recalled this year. Almost immediately, Johnson switched agencies. Ford, no doubt, soon realized her mistake. But it was too late. She would not be the agent who put the first Black woman on the cover of American Vogue, where Johnson knew she belonged. “I realized pretty early this industry is smoke and mirrors”, said Johnson.
Writer: Constanced C.R. White.
Photographer/Producer: Tom Marvel.
Talent: Beverly Johnson.
Creative Director: Cannon at Ray Brown Pro.
Lighting Director: Pierre Bonnet
Director of Video: James Weber
Digital Tech: Olivia Wohlers
Photographer Assistant: Michele Swain
Grip: George Santos.
Hair: Laurentius Purnama
Makeup: Isabel Perez
Set Producer: Winnie Noan
Retoucher: Nadia Selander
Junior Stylist: David Goldberg
Fashion Assistants: Alaye Alleyne, Bridget McDonald
Production Assistant: Jack Umphrey
Special thanks to: Lori Modugno, Patty Sicular, Jill Cohen Perlman at Iconic Focus
Studio: Hudson Yards Loft
Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam
