Remember that famous Blackglama advertising tagline, “What becomes a legend most?” One imagines Beverly Johnson posing a similar question to herself in the lead-up to a very significant anniversary: Nearly 50 years ago, in August 1974, Johnson, a 22-year-old from Buffalo, New York, became the first Black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue. The answer she came up with is a one-woman off-Broadway show to mark the historic moment.
Like many projects, this one was delayed by COVID-19, yet seems to have arrived just when it is needed most. “It’s interesting how world events, American events, and Beverly’s story collided at this moment,” notes director Josh Ravetch. “It’s definitely an American story,” Johnson continues, “in the way that you have a chance at opportunities that you would never have anywhere else in the world…and how it’s possible to stumble upon success. I was a student and I wanted to be a lawyer [when I was scouted at 18]; this never was in my scope. It’s only in America where you can totally redesign your life unintentionally.”
Beverly Johnson: In Vogue, co-written by Johnson with Ravetch (a co-creator of Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking) is deliberately unchronological. Instead, the show—a monologue with pictures and music—is bookended by portraits of Black women who were, and still are, pioneers, underlining the importance of Johnson’s own barrier-breaking first. The starting point of the show isn’t Johnson’s birth, but the cover that changed her life, though that’s not what she opens the play with. “A part of the show is really Beverly Johnson as tour guide, taking us through the last 50 years of America,” says Ravetch. “There’s always a kind of touchstone between her story and what’s happening in the larger world.” Not to mention women’s worlds. Johnson is especially emotional when speaking about a destructive relationship, losing custody of her daughter, and her experience with the #MeToo movement. She goes deep, but she also dishes about the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Arthur Ashe, Harry Belafonte, and Halston.
But about that cover: It’s something that Johnson manifested. After model maven Eileen Ford told her it would never happen, the model left her agency and joined Wilhelmina, run by Wilhelmina Cooper, a model-turned-agent who had her feet up on the desk, a cigarette in one hand, and a slice of pizza in the other at their first meeting.
When she later delivered the good news about Vogue, however, Cooper had a phone receiver in her hand. Johnson was in bed when the phone rang, and in her rush to get to the newsstand forgot her wallet. “That’s me,” she tried to explain to the newsagent, gesturing to an issue of Vogue, to no avail. It was a life-changing event, in ways positive and otherwise.
Lisa Fonssagrives, the top model of the 1950s, once described herself as a clothes hanger; in contrast, Johnson rarely mentions clothes but describes herself as having having a “big mouth,” meaning she wouldn’t stay silent: not about her experience with Bill Cosby, or about her failures as well as her successes. There’s little sugarcoating. “My scars and my mistakes and my learning process can be exposed in a way that’s not unapologetic, but also not sensationalized—because I’m too old to be sensationalized,” says Johnson. “This is my story, it’s totally true—as my daughter would say, a little bit too true. And as my brothers and sisters say, ‘Can’t you keep anything to yourself?’”
Thankfully for the audience, Johnson does little of that, making Beverly Johnson: In Vogue an engaging experience. Asked what her takeaways from the experience are, the model/business woman/author/actor replies: “My biggest lessons are in my huge mistakes. I’m happy to be alive; a lot of people didn’t make it.” Another life lesson: “There’s enough time for everything. Time is in your imagination.”
These days, much of Johnson’s heart, and much of her time, is spent with her family. The show, she explained, gives her “a chance to show my grandchildren who their grandmother is. They can’t call me ‘grandmother,’” she adds. “They call me Softa: soft and tough.” Along with her beauty and charms, it’s that unexpected and powerful soft-tough dichotomy that keeps Johnson in the headlines today.
Beverly Johnson: In Vogue is at 59E59 Theaters through February 4, 2024.
