BEVERLY Johnson, looks decades younger than she is — so it may be a shock to hear she's been strutting her stuff for half a century.
Now 70, America's first Black supermodel is marking the 50th anniversary of when she became the first Black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue.
Speaking to The U.S. Sun, the star shared her thoughts on plastic surgery, her anti-aging routine, and a peek into being a grandma on an upcoming family reality show — that will have "a little more flavor than the Kardashians."
Beverly, who has worked with the most famous fashion designers and photographers in the world, credits her youthful looks and liveliness to her fitness and beauty.
Now a grandmother, the trailblazing superwoman is even busier today than in her cover girl days.
Beverly, who closed out the Dennis Basso New York Fashion Week show in February to a standing ovation, practices Pilates as a religion.
She credits her workout of choice with not only her stunning figure, but also helping with physical balance as she ages.
"If it wasn't for Pilates, I wouldn't have been able to walk the runway. People think you just walk but you try it," she exclusively told The U.S. Sun.
"It's like performing a dance, you can't just be a ballerina or a dancer, it takes real training and skill."
She also trained with runway coach Miss J. Alexander of America's Top Model fame.
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She said: "I got Miss J to coach me and work on my strength so that I could wear seven-inch heels.
"It's hard to walk that runway so it was definitely a a process.
"We went to work on my feet for the catwalk. It's all that flexibility in the feet and the big toe that help with your core and posture."
She also explained how aside from sculpting long lean legs, Pilates helps with balance, something which Beverly said is crucial as you age.
She said: "There are certain muscles that have to be engaged constantly.
"You're not able to move like you were once you get to a certain age, but Pilates will get you back to where you used to be."
Beverly, who lives near Rancho Mirage, California, also stays on top of all of the latest beauty trends.
"I just like discovering new things and products and looking wonderful and healthy," she explained.
Her favorite person might just be Dr. Wendy Roberts, a dermatologist who she calls "the youth booster."
To keep her model looks, she also won't let anyone else but Dr. Roberts inject her with Botox.
But it hasn't always been that way, and she had some bad reactions while living in LA.
"People would be scared of me. Some of these doctors are just so heavy-handed," she said.
"No one knows I have it because I look like myself, not like a replica of someone else's style."
With the same supermodel skin even 50 years after her first Vogue cover — and many subsequent covers — Beverly also uses Retrouve skincare products.
She swears by the brand's scientifically advanced products and explained that everything comes in dark bottles so that no oxygen hits it.
"With most makeup, by the time they put it in the bottle, the main ingredients are already evaporated."
"It is pricey but it really does more than what it says and is better than most," she explained.
Founded by Kiehl's heir and Beverly's good friend Jami Heidegger, Retrouve is known for its formulations and advanced airless manufacturing process.
Her biggest obsession is the brand's Baume Body Oil.
"I lather it all on. The new balancing face oil is amazing also, it doesn't block your pores and you can use it under your makeup.
"They grow avocados on a 25-acre farm in Malibu, which I have visited."
When it comes to hydrating, only one type of water will do for the high fashion model: Hallstein Water.
According to Beverly, the brand offers the purest water on earth that comes right out of the glaciers from the Alps.
She also said that her heritage gives her an advantage when it comes to her natural beauty.
Aside from her favorites — the $240 Baume Body Oil and $190 balancing face oil — Beverly also spilled on her other no longer secret go-to skincare products.
These include the $75 intensive replenishing facial moisturizer, the $215 revitalizing eye concentrate skin hydrator, the $75 luminous cleansing elixir, and the $170 nutrient face serum.
"Being Black is wonderful because we have a head start with the way we look.
Black people don't crack, but other people don't scar like we do. Until they figure out how to eliminate scarring — and I'm talking plastic surgery and anything else — no knife is coming near me.
"Black people don't crack, but other people don't scar like we do.
"Until they figure out how to eliminate scarring — and I'm talking plastic surgery and anything else — no knife is coming near me."
She is also a proponent of people doing whatever they need to look and feel the way that they want.
Beverly has helped others regain their confidence with the wig line she had founded.
With her youthful looks and boost of energy, she is still ready for her close-up.
Mostly, the model, who has published her memoirs — Warner Brothers will be bringing her story to a screen soon — believes that you have to know where you came from in order to know where you're going.
And Beverly hasn't forgotten her humble beginnings either — and she never planned on becoming a model.
In fact, her main dream was once to be in a courtroom, not on a magazine cover, and she initially bristled at the idea.
Coming up in the 60s and during the Civil Rights movement, Beverly had other plans for herself.
That all changed when the homesick college student lost her job at the YMCA where she was working as a lifeguard and realized that her parents would not be able to afford the tuition.
She heard that a model could make $75 in a day – the same amount that it was taking her father to make as a steel worker – in a week.
"I said, for standing with their hands on their hips?"
And the rest is history.
Beverly was determined to learn everything about the business so that she could be number one.
At the time, she knew nothing about the industry — including the fact that Black people had never been on the cover of Vogue — or any other major fashion magazine.
"They don't go around announcing we don't put black people on the cover," she explained.
"The industry was like the Wild West, there was no transparency — and it's not always pretty.
"I could have been making $1 million dollars for a job and I didn't know what the agent was giving me from that."
Beverly’s Anti-Aging Tips
- Regular pilates sessions
- Retrouve brand body oil, face oil, replenishing facial moisturizer, nutrient face serum, eye concentrate skin hydrator, and luminous cleansing elixir
- Hallstein water for ultimate hydration
- Botox injections for a natural-looking pull
Since becoming the first Black model to cover Vogue, the supermodel turned role model has been focusing her energies on multiple organizations she is involved in, including City of Hope.
They are the first hospital to concentrate on Black people’s diseases, including high blood pressure and heart disease.
"More people are dying from childbirth and we are trying to find out why and what we can do differently.
"We are not privy to or included in those tests and experiments that other groups are included in."
The philanthropic model also sits on the board of the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center, which is focused on child sexual abuse.
Barbara had personally asked Beverly to get involved.
Today, she is proud of the self-esteem lessons she gives at the center.
Never one to back down when it comes to impacting the lives of others, she serves as an ambassador for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.
Founded in honor of actor Jamie Foxx's sister, who had Down syndrome before passing away recently, Beverly still finds time to dedicate to the cause.
She is also involved in the Model Alliance which aims to make the industry safer for everyone.
Beverly explained how some models are working in Europe at 14 and 15 years old and are being trafficked.
It is because of the Model Alliance that former president Donald Trump was able to sue for a sexual allegation decades later as one of the organization's biggest advocates helped amend time statutes on sexual abuse.
"If I could leave the modeling world in a better place I would really like that."
Early next year, Beverly will even be appearing in a one-woman show in New York called In Vogue.
"As I was contemplating what I was going to do to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American Vogue cover, I get this offer from an off-Broadway theatre.
"It's just a fun, inspiring piece with lots of laughs and some drama, so it's just one of those things that I really enjoy doing."
Beverly co-wrote the play, which will be debuting in January at the 59E59 Theatre, along with famed writer Joshua Ravetch.
She also enjoys doing speaking engagements through her affiliation with the American Program Bureau and using her social media platforms to reach out to others.
"You don't always get a chance to connect with people when you're in a magazine or on TV, but on Instagram I can speak directly," she said.
She might have been an icon in the modeling world, but Beverly has also been a role model in the Black community at large.
Most recently, she spoke to a group of 1,500 corporate Black lawyers which she described as an invigorating experience.
Though she has mostly maintained a more private life, Beverly, who lives with her fiancee Brian Maillian, is willing to make things a bit more public.
She has started to shoot a television program for WE TV where the model will get to show off her favorite role ever — as grandmother.
"I can hide behind my daughter and grandkids," she joked.
The entrepreneur, who describes herself as a "hovering grandma," even attends parent-teacher meetings.
Beverly, who has appeared on numerous covers including Glamour, is even called Softa for her tough but soft grandmotherly ways — she prefers that to grandma.
This glam-ma, who previously had her own reality show called Beverly's Full House on The Oprah Winfrey Network, also explained how all of the noise and chaos within her own family inspired the show.
This time, the cameras will mostly focus on her daughter Anansa and her children as well as Anansa's fiancee, retired NBA player Matt Barnes, and his kids.
Beverly plans to be more of a Mary Poppins-type character who floats in to spend time with the grandkids.
Is it time for momager Kris Jenner to move over?
"It’s going to have a little more flavor than the Kardashians. I'm more out there, it's the real deal.
"I love them, I grew up with them. I have home videos of the girls as kids. Beyonce too, who used to come to my house.
"But this is a moment in this century that shows an extended family and what that looks like.
"It's messy, it's loud, and it's full of love and moments that we cherish.
"I just want to be the kind of grandmother that my grandmother was to me."
Altogether, six lucky kids ranging in age from 4 to 14 get to call the model Softa.
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Will any of them be following in her runway-walking footsteps?
With one 12-year-old granddaughter already at eye-level with the 5-foot-9 supermodel, there might be another Vogue cover girl from within the family yet.
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