Before Hollywood, she was a muse to her brother Willi Smith and a face for Givenchy, Mugler and Patrick Kelly.
Toukie Smith, the Philadelphia-born model who walked for some of fashion's biggest names, played Eva Rawley on NBC's "227" and spent eight years as Robert De Niro's partner, has died. She was 74.
Smith died Nov. 4 at a New York hospital after a long battle with multiple sclerosis, her twins, Airyn and Julian De Niro, said in a statement released Monday. "Toukie was a force of nature," they said.
Most headlines will lead with De Niro. That is the easy hook. The fuller story belongs to a Black woman from Philadelphia who helped shape how a generation of designers pictured glamour, then fought for space in a Hollywood that rarely knew what to do with her.
From Philadelphia to the runway
She was born Doris A. Smith on Sept. 25, 1952, in Philadelphia. The nickname came from her grandmother, who sang her a song about a fire engine with a lot of energy. It fit.
Smith began modeling in the early 1970s, following her brother, designer Willi Smith, into fashion. He built WilliWear into one of the defining labels of the 1980s, with affordable, youthful clothes that erased the line between sportswear and the street. Toukie was his muse and modeled for the brand.
Her own book stood on its own. She worked with Hubert de Givenchy, Thierry Mugler, Issey Miyake and Patrick Kelly, with illustrators Antonio Lopez and Alvaro, and with photographers Jean-Paul Goude and Guy Bourdin.
Willi Smith died in 1987 of complications from AIDS. He was 39. His sister would carry his name into everything she built after.
'Miami Vice,' '227' and the fight to be cast
Smith moved to the screen in the mid-1980s with a recurring role on NBC's "Miami Vice" as Angie, the assistant to Sheena Easton's pop singer Caitlin Davies.
In 1989, she joined "227" for its final seasons as Eva Rawley, sharing the Washington, D.C., stoop with Marla Gibbs, Helen Martin and a young Regina King. For a model making the jump to prime time, it was a seat at one of the few network tables built around Black women.
She never pretended the road was easy. In a 1992 interview with The New York Times, she said breaking through in Hollywood was hard, and she drew her line plainly: "I am an actress first."
Film work followed in the 1990s, including Darnell Martin's "I Like It Like That" (1994), "Joe's Apartment" (1996), Penny Marshall's "The Preacher's Wife" (1996) and "Goosed."
Toukie's, and a promise to her brother
In 1994, Smith opened Toukie's, a restaurant on West Houston Street in Manhattan. She gave part of its profits to AIDS causes in her brother's honor, turning a downtown dining room into a quiet memorial.
De Niro and family
Smith and De Niro were together from 1988 to 1996. Their twins, Airyn and Julian, were conceived through in vitro fertilization and born via surrogate in 1995. The couple split about a year later and largely kept their relationship out of the press.
She is survived by her children; her brother, Norman Smith-Harllee; and her nephew, Eliazar Smith-Harllee.
The legacy
Smith's career ran through the rooms where Black style was being invented in real time: her brother's studio, Patrick Kelly's Paris runways and a prime-time sitcom set on a Black block in the nation's capital. She was a muse who wanted to be the author of her own story. Recognition too often arrived attached to someone else's name.
The runway knew her first. Prime time knew her next. Her name belongs at the front of her own headline.
