Beverly Ann Johnson[1][3] (born October 13, 1952)[4] is an American model, actress, singer, and businesswoman. Johnson rose to fame when she became the first Black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue in August 1974, after Donyale Luna was the first Black model to appear on the cover of British Vogue in 1966.[5][6] In 2012, Johnson was the star of the reality series Beverly's Full House that aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In 2008, The New York Times named Johnson one of the 20th century's most influential people in fashion.[7]
Early life, family and education
Born the first of two children to Gloria Johnson,[8] a surgical technician, Johnson was raised in a middle-class family in Buffalo, New York. During her youth, Johnson was a champion swimmer and aspired to be a lawyer.[4] Johnson attended Bennett High School,[9] graduating in 1969.[1] After high school, Johnson studied criminal justice at Northeastern University.
Career
While in college, Johnson tried modeling[10] while on summer break in 1971.[4] She quickly landed an assignment with Glamour and began working steadily.[10] She went on to appear on more than 500 magazine covers, including the August 1974 issue of Vogue, becoming the magazine's first African-American cover model for the US edition, after Donyale Luna's 1966 British Vogue cover.[4] Her appearance on the cover changed the beauty ideal in US fashion, and by 1975, every major American fashion designer had begun using African-American models.[11]
Johnson received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Organization's Model Pioneer Award at the United Nations in 2022, celebrating her as a trailblazer and innovator in her field. The prestigious award, also recognized by the US Congress, highlights women entrepreneurs and the meaningful impact they are having on the world.[16]
In 2024, Johnson embarked on a one-woman off-Broadway show, Beverly Johnson: In Vogue. It was characterized as an "intimate, live biography with Johnson taking the stage to share her personal dispatches in the ever-shifting, but never dull, fashion and entertainment industries."[17]
In late 2014, she wrote an article for Vanity Fair[18] in which she accused Bill Cosby of drugging her in a meeting at his Manhattan residence in the 1980s, although the incident did not result in a sexual assault. Johnson said that Cosby spiked a cup of cappuccino with an unknown drug. As she felt her "body go completely limp," she realized what was happening. Johnson said she then screamed and cursed at him several times before Cosby got angry and dragged her outside and hailed a cab for her. Johnson decided to tell her story in hopes that "by going public" she would "encourage anyone [who] has been sexually victimized to speak out."[19][20] Her memoir, The Face That Changed It All, which discusses the Cosby incident, was released on August 25, 2015.
Subsequently, Cosby started a defamation lawsuit against Johnson, stating that she was lying about the drugging incident and contending that Johnson's story, first told in the Vanity Fair article, had been repeated in numerous interviews. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages and an injunction to prevent Johnson from repeating her claims and to require her to remove them from her memoir.[21] Cosby dropped the lawsuit on February 19, 2016, allegedly to devote more time to his criminal case.[22]
Personal life
Johnson has been married thrice. Her first marriage was to real estate agent Billy Potter in 1971, later divorcing in 1974. On May 8, 1977,[23][24] Johnson, then aged 25, married 40-year-old businessman and music producer Danny Sims.[25][26] She gave birth to their daughter, Anansa Sims on December 27, 1978, in New York City.[27][14] Johnson and Sims divorced in 1979.
Johnson and actor Chris Noth were in a five-year relationship until 1995.[28] She filed a restraining order against Noth, accusing him of physical, verbal and racial abuse.[29]
On January 13, 2023, she married her longtime partner, Brian Maillian, a successful financier, Chairman and CEO of Whitestone Global Partners LLC.[30]
