Tyson Beckford: Rise of the Supermodel

TYSON BECKFORD Tyson Beckford is a name almost synonymous with the male fashion industry today. But his early upbringing in Rochester and The Bronx in New York City was anything but glamorous. It was surely American, but it was a far cry from the 'Ralph Lauren American Dream' that Tyson would later come to represent. More than just breaking a few glass ceilings in his rise, he often had to fight for his very life. He is noted as the first Jamaican-American male supermodel, also credited with opening the door for other men of colour to enter into the industry. Tyson was born in The Bronx in under the snowstorms of Rochester, upstate New York City, on the 19th December, 1970. He was born to an Afro-Jamaican mother, Hillary Dixon Hall and a Panamanian father of Afro-Jamaican and Chinese-Jamaican descent, Lloyd Beckford. Even though most people consider him a black man, he is also one full quarter Chinese. When Tyson was still a small child, soon after he was born, his mother Hilary took the family back to Jamaica, where they lived for seven years connecting a young Tyson to his Jamaican roots, before returning to New York City, before embarking on his stellar career as a Supermodel, actor and producer.