Tracey “Africa” Norman: The Trailblazing ‘Born Beautiful’ Clairol Model

After being discovered by famed photographer Irving Penn at a casting for Italian Vogue, Tracey “Africa” Norman’s modeling career skyrocketed. In 1975, she appeared on the front of a box of Clairol hair dye sold in drug stores across the U.S. That color, Dark Auburn, Box 512, became one of Clairol’s bestsellers. Norman’s image was used on the box for six years next to the words, “Born Beautiful.”

In the middle of this formidable rise, Norman was on set of a shoot for Essence magazine when she was outed. “And that’s the day my career ended,” she says. “Because the next day I called my agency and there was nothing.”

Now, Norman is celebrated as an early trailblazer. Her story, often cited by Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, is told and retold by those in the LGBTQ+ community with the same reverence reserved for that of Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.

I spoke with Norman in 2020 about seeing the “Born Beautiful” Clairol box for the first time, how being outed affected her relationship with the Black and LGBTQ+ communities, and why she wants to see the fashion world embrace more women of color.

“I’m not seeing anyone of color do the things that I have done and sign contracts. It’s only been my white counterpart who are working, who are doing the shows, who are on the covers of major magazines.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Jeffrey Masters: Something I think is so interesting and special about your story is the number of times throughout history that someone has been outed and lost everything in their career. And we don’t know their names, history doesn’t remember them. Are you surprised by how well known your story is and has become?

Tracey “Africa” Norman: Yeah. From the very beginning, I’ve been shocked about it, and the interest that has grown to wanting to know my story. In the beginning, it’s been overwhelming, but I’m kind of, not getting used to it, but it still surprises me.

JM: How do you think about the impact that you’ve had?

TAN: I think because a lot of the girls like me are now in front of the cameras, on television and writing, singing and modeling, and they’ve all congratulated me by being the first. But to be clear, I never identified with transgender, the term. I’ve always identified as being a woman. I mean, I understand the reasons why they are advertising that they’re transgender. In my generation, I couldn’t.

JM: Are you saying that in the ’70s you weren’t able to identify as trans, or that now you don’t?

TAN: Yeah, I still don’t identify as trans. I’ve always identified as being a woman. It was New York Magazine and the London Times and Marie Claire that put the word trans and attached it to my name. I understood the publicity for it and the interest that it drummed up, but I made that very clear in every interview, that I never identified as trans. But as far as getting interest that it drummed up, I totally get that.

JM: I always considered you an icon of trans history and have never actually heard that you don’t use that label.

TAN: I don’t have a problem with people using it. I’m just saying, me personally, I’ve never identified with the word trans, or being trans. I guess, because of the time difference. And I didn’t grow up around gay people. I only had women around me. So being a shy child, I mimicked myself after women. I’ve watched how they talked, conversed with each other, how they walk, how they sat. I was just enthralled with the femininity of a woman. And that’s what I wanted to be.

JM: When you were outed professionally, did that also transfer over to you being out in your personal life?

TAN: Not per se. Because my mother was always there. I’ve been her oldest daughter since I was born, because she always knew that she had a special child. She reminds me of that. In fact, our conversation would either be in the car, or we’re walking the dog together, or sitting at the dinner table laughing and joking. She would just stop and periodically tell me that her words would be, “Tracey, you were born before your time.” And all of those years, I never understood what that meant, until I was reached out for my story. And when Clairol resigned me to another three-year contract, then I realized what my mother meant by that. Because by that time the other trans girls were outing themselves. And the reason why is because that prevented anybody to have a secret hanging over their head, which I did. So that gave someone power over me.

JM: When you were modeling, was your assumption that you’d never disclose your history?

TAN: No, no. I’d never disclosed that with anyone except the people in New Jersey. When I started modeling, I mean, obviously they knew, because some of them, I knew since grammar school, and they were in the fashion, hair, and design, and photography business. So when I stepped away from that, and came back as Tracey, they took me under their wings and started teaching me how to model. They thought that I was pretty enough to be a model. So they started training me. And so they knew, and then people that were coming to those local fashion shows, I guess all you need is one mouth, and the entire city winds up knowing.

JM: Gender aside, there were incredibly few Black women working as models at that time, at least in the mainstream. Were you often the only Black woman in these spaces?

TAN: When I went up for certain jobs, no. Of course when there was a call for Black models, then all of those girls would show up, and I’d wind up getting the job. But when I was discovered by Mr. Irving Penn, he called Zoli Management and told Zoli that he had a young Beverly Johnson standing in front of him. And that’s how they promoted me.

JM: That must have felt pretty great.

TAN: Yeah, it was an honor, but in my head, my world was still turning. This was all new to me. I knew nothing about the professional side of the fashion business. So I didn’t realize, even at the time when I met Mr. Penn, how legendary his legendary status was. When I got discovered by him, I had no clue in who he was, or his status. I didn’t even know that when, who was interviewing me, that he was a photographer. Later on, I found out that it was the editor for Italian Vogue. It was the designer himself. When I entered the room, I just entered the room, not knowing what was going to happen.

JM: A few short years later, you’re suddenly the face on a box of Clairol hair dye in stores across the country. It was your face, and it says “Born Beautiful.” What was your reaction when you first saw that?

TAN: One day my mom and I went into the drug store to pick up our beauty items, bath items, et cetera, et cetera. And I just happened to walk down the aisle. I didn’t know when the box was going to be released. I didn’t have any idea when that was happening. And there I was. And I just, my mother was in another aisle, and I went searching for her, and grabbed her and said, “Mommy, Mommy, you’ve got to come look, look, look.” Yeah, it was an incredible moment for the both of us. She was really proud. I was proud and overwhelmed with joy. And she was proud and overwhelmed with her baby. And so we bought a couple of boxes.

JM: Do you still have them?

TAN: I don’t have the original one, because during that transition, after I got outed, I held onto my apartment because I had lived on 70th and Western Avenue. That was my very first apartment. I tried to keep it as long as I could, with savings that I had. So me and my dog had to pack up and leave and go back to my mom’s house. And then going out on my own, I guess, when you’re sleeping on everybody’s sofa, that you don’t have a place that you own. So they considered it homeless.

JM: Hearing your story about being outed, I always wondered what happened next. How did you support yourself?

TAN: Well, I didn’t. My mother supported me. She supported me until a girlfriend of mine, we all started together, her name was Sherry, and she was a beautiful, exotic, tall female with cat eyes, cat green eyes and reddish blonde hair, African American girl. And she said that she was going to Paris for work. Did I want to come? So I was like, “Yeah.” But then I needed a passport. So my mother gave me my sister’s birth certificate to get a passport, because I certainly couldn’t use mine. With that, we both went out to the airport and got a standby ticket on TWA. We had to go out there every night around 12 o’clock to see if anybody canceled. So we had to go out there at 12 midnight every night for three nights. And finally people had canceled, and we were able to get on a flight. Those are one-way tickets, mind you, with no funds to get back. And between the two of us, we may have had a hundred or $150 between the two of us.

JM: Wow.

TAN: But we were young. And when you’re young, you have no fear. There’s no way in the world I would do that today. But a lot of things that you do when you’re young, you would not do today. So you have no fear, it’s an adventure. You go, and we found a hotel room and tried to get some work.

JM: Back then, without the internet, did your story follow you overseas?

TAN: It could have, had I done the circuit working for major designers, but I didn’t have an agent. And I lucked out and got a job working in the House of Balenciaga, being a showroom model, for about six months, for the winter collection. So it was about, it was like five girls. I was the only Black girl. The others were French white girls.

JM: Soon after you were outed, Caroline Cossey, another model who was in a James Bond film, was outed as being transgender. That was in 1981. Do you remember seeing that at that time?

TAN: I don’t remember seeing that, but later on it was brought to my attention, yes. But not at the time.

JM: In her example, she continued to work. Did that give you hope that the same could be true for you?

TAN: No, but there’s a difference in skin color. It’s like today, I’m not seeing anyone of color do the things that I have done and sign contracts. It’s only been my white counterparts who are working, who are doing the shows, who are on the covers of major magazines.

JM: That’s in terms of modeling, but when it comes to the TV world and film, it’s people like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock who are the two most visible trans people working today.

TAN: Yes. And even I have to give thanks to both of them, because in an interview they mentioned my name, and that’s how interest of my story was circulating through the internet. And that’s how it all started, through a conversation that they were having.

JM: For so long, your story was defined in the public’s mind from this traumatic thing. Is it hard to be known for something that is so hard?

TAN: I have learned over the years that anybody of color who are a trailblazer, and I fall into that category, are the ones that pay the price for other people to benefit from, or to continue the fight.

I started realizing that after Martin Luther King, they assassinated him. He was a trailblazer. There are other people that were trailblazers in the art, who were blacklisted, like Nina Simone, that were trailblazers in their craft, and got destroyed because of their skin color, and their beliefs and whatever. But they were all trailblazers, and they left a door for somebody to follow through.

JM: The person who outed you was a part of the LGBTQ community. Did that add to the hurt?

TAN: Yes. Because first of all, you need to understand, in the ’70s, and in the African American community, Black gay men did not appreciate the talent and the beauty that women like me possessed. And so there was a stigma against us, because we were either all on drugs and working as prostitutes. So there was a level that they kept us at, which was on the bottom. And this person, or persons, were interested because they knew people from New Jersey. The one that outed me lived in East Orange, New Jersey. So I guess the curiosity of me coming from New Jersey, and they denied knowing me, but somebody in that group or outside that group knew, and there seemed to have been some underhanded kind of conspiracy going on.

And it was just so weird how it all happened. I got booked, and I’m on a set shooting in front of the camera, and he comes in. So he had to call Essence because he wasn’t booked to be there. There was no hairdresser on the job, because they had box braided my hair and beaded every single braid. So he had to call Essence Magazine to find out where Susan Taylor was, the editor, and who she was shooting with. And he came on the set, that’s how determined they were, to come on the set. And that’s the day my career ended. Because the next day I called my agency, there was nothing.

JM: And because he was gay, did that shape your relationship with the queer community?

TAN: Well, yeah, there’s the gay community. I just kind of, well, it was both, it was the Black community also. So Susan Taylor was part of the Black community. So I was no longer beautiful to her. She kept telling me how beautiful I was, and helping my career would go a long way, et cetera. But suddenly I’m no longer beautiful and no longer worthy of being in front of the camera. So the Black community outed me, and also the gay community outed me, and it forced me to be alone.

JM: Do you still feel like that today?

TAN: Yeah. I don’t trust. It’s hard for me to trust. Throughout my life I’ve never felt as though I fitted in, in any particular group of friends, for some odd reason, I just never felt that I fitted in. So I had the tendency to become a loner. And because of my Black race, gay and straight, I have a tendency to just stay away.

JM: Does that feeling add to part of the reason why you don’t use the label transgender?

TAN: No, it’s just something that was inside of me. I say it’s a part of my DNA. It was just how I was feeling about me, and who I was, and who I identified with. And I identified with women, because I didn’t grow up around the gay community for someone to teach me. So with that, my speech, the way I conduct myself in public situations, I never learned the gay slang, as far as being trans, or gay, or how, or what category that people want to put you in, whatever box people want to put you in. I just didn’t fit.

JM: W\hen we put up this interview, I originally was going to say this is an elder in the trans community, but I don’t want to use that word if you don’t. Can we say you’re part of the LGBTQ community? Is that okay?

TAN: That would be fine. I mean, look, I know the interest of being a part of the community and how the new terminology is set up. I don’t have a problem with that.

JM: I just didn’t want to assign a label to you that you don’t like.

TAN: It’s fine. I’m used to it now.

JM: I called you an elder in the community. How does it feel to be considered that?

TAN: Oh, come on now. I’m 68-years old. I’m proud to have lived this long and still being relevant. So it’s fine with me. It amazes me that people were still having a conversation about Tracey Africa. It really does, it just amazes me.

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Click here to listen to the full interview on the LGBTQ&A podcast.

LGBTQ&A features interviews with the most interesting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in the world. Hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@jeffmasters1⁠⁠⁠

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