From her biography, Beverly Johnson was born in Buffalo, in the city of New York. She was born in the middle class family and she was a swimming champion when she was still young and she wanted to become a lawyer. She did a criminal justice major in the University of Northeastern but tried to model during that time and it was during the summer break of 1971. At that time, she landed the assignment with the Glamour and started to get work on stead basis. She was able to appear on over 500 magazine covers and this included Vogue cover when she became the first black model to be on this cover. The appearance on Vogue cover changed how the people viewed beauty ideal in the fashion of US. In 1975, the major American fashion designers started to include black models.

Besides being a model, Beverly Johnson is also author of a book called Beverly Johnson’s Guide to Life of Health and Beauty. She also started acting as a career. She had many roles in different movies and they include Def Jam’s How to be a Player, The Meteor Man, Ashanti and Crossroads. She did appear in the guest spots on many television series and they are Law & Order, Martin TV series, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and the Parenthood. Others are 3rd Rock from the Sun, Super Bowl Episode and she was a celebrity judge for two season at TV Land series. The show was called She’s Got The Look and it is the reality series where over 35 women had to compete to get modeling contract with a magazine spread. In 2008, she said that together with other models, they suffered bulimia and anorexia in their career. She had a singing career but it did not last and she released an album in the year 1979 with the Buddah Records. She is known to be a beauty and hair influencer for a long time.

The first husband was Billy Potter, they married in the year 1971 but they divorced in 1973. She married also Danny Sims and got a daughter called Anansa with him but also divorced him. She has no other children. Her net worth is 5 million dollars.