Toukie A. Smith is an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 actress and model

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

. Smith is the sister of late fashion designer Willi Smith

Willi Smith

Willi Donnell Smith was one of the most successful young African-American fashion designers in fashion history. At the time of his death, his company Williwear Ltd...

 and former long-term partner of actor Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...

, with whom she has two sons. She is best known for her role as "Eva Rawley" for one season on the NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 sitcom 227

227 (TV series)

227 is an American situation comedy that originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, until May 6, 1990. The series starred Marla Gibbs as a sharp-tongued, inner-city resident gossip and housewife, Mary Jenkins...

. Her other credits include Talkin' Dirty After Dark

Talkin' Dirty After Dark

Talkin' Dirty After Dark is a comedy film starring Martin Lawrence. The film was directed by Topper Carew, who also wrote the film. Carew also directed, created, and produced Lawrence's TV show, Martin...

, Joe's Apartment

Joe's Apartment

Joe's Apartment is a 1996 musical-serio-comedy film starring Jerry O'Connell and Megan Ward and the first film produced by MTV Films. It was based on a 1992 short film first made for MTV , but was also inspired by both the 1987 Japanese film Gokiburi-tachi No Tasogare and...

, and The Preacher's Wife

The Preacher's Wife

The Preacher's Wife is a 1996 romantic-family-dramedy-christmas film directed by Penny Marshall, and starring Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston, and Loretta Devine. It is a remake of the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife....

.

Smith started her career in the 1970s as a model, working for such brands as Chanel

Chanel

Chanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...

, Versace, Geoffrey Beene

Geoffrey Beene

Geoffrey Beene was an American fashion designer.Beene was born in Haynesville, Louisiana. He studied medicine at Tulane University, but dropped out in 1946, after three years. He moved to New York in 1947 to attend the Traphagen School of Fashion...

, Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake

is a Japanese fashion designer. He is known for his technology-driven clothing designs, exhibitions and fragrances.-Life and career:Miyake was born 22 April 1938 in Hiroshima, Japan. As a seven year-old, he witnessed and survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. He studied...

, Norma Kamali

Norma Kamali

Norma Kamali is a New York-based fashion designer born in 1945. She is best known for the "sleeping bag" coat, "parachute pants" made from silk parachutes, and versatile multi-use pieces. She designed the red one-piece bathing suit worn by Farah Fawcett in the iconic 1976 Charlie's Angels poster....

, Thierry Mugler

Thierry Mugler

Thierry Mugler is a French fashion designer and creator of several perfumes.-Childhood:Mugler was born in Strasbourg, France on 21 December 1948. His passion led him to focus more on drawing than on school and at the age of 9, he began to study classical dance...

, and Patrick Kelly

Patrick Kelly (fashion designer)

Patrick Kelly was a Vicksburg, Mississippi, U.S. born. Kelly studied art at Jackson University and than attended Parsons DesignNYC. While living in Atlanta Kelly sold recycled clothes and working with out pay at Yves Saint Laurent chairman Pierre Bergé, who later in 1988, sponsored Kelly...

. She also had a successful print career, including a photo campaign for Yves St. Laurent as well as appearances in Vogue

Vogue (magazine)

Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...

, ELLE

Elle

Elle may refer to:*Elle, Central African Republic*Elle , a fashion publication*Ellé, a river in France*Elle , a female given name*Elle , a Sri Lankan game similar to baseball*Ælle of Sussex, a Saxon king...

, Ebony

Ebony (magazine)

Ebony, a monthly magazine for the African-American market, was founded by John H. Johnson and has published continuously since the autumn of 1945...

, Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (magazine)

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

, Redbook

Redbook

Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...

, and Seventeen

Seventeen (magazine)

Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...

magazines.

In 1978, Smith was named Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale's is an American department store owned by Macy's, Inc. .Bloomingdale's started in 1861 when brothers Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale started selling hoop-skirts in their Ladies Notions' Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side...

Model of the Year and became the first African-American model to have a mannequin designed in her likeness.

External links

• Article on Toukie Smith and Robert De Niro