B. Smith is a multi-media pioneer in the lifestyle and entertaining realm: the first African American woman to become a national arbiter of taste, with an audience that cut across all racial and ethnic lines. Born in Everson, Pennsylvania, she began her career as a top fashion model for the Wilhelmina Agency, becoming the first black face on the cover of Mademoiselle and appearing on numerous covers of Essence and Ebony, among other national publications. She also represented major brands, from Crest to Pillsbury to Betty Crocker. In the mid-l980s, she opened her first eponymous restaurant in New York’s theater district; in its appeal to both black and white patrons, including many celebrities, it broke color barriers, too. B. Smith went on to write three books on entertaining: B. Smith Rituals and Celebrations, B. Smith’s Entertaining and Cooking for Friends, and B. Smith Cooks Southern Style. Frequent appearances on national television shows like Good Morning America led to her own nationally syndicated television show, B. Smith with Style, which ran profitably for eight years and set another precedent: the first-ever nationally syndicated lifestyle show by an African American. A national magazine, B. Smith Style, was also launched at this time. Along with their New York restaurant, B. and her husband, Dan, oversaw two others, in Washington, D.C., and Sag Harbor, New York, where they now live full-time.
Dan Gasby, B.’s husband for twenty-three years, is also her business partner in all her ventures. Raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, he made his way through Colgate University and became a television sales and marketing executive. Eventually he created the syndicated television show Big Break with Natalie Cole, a precursor of American Idol, which ran in over 180 markets and launched the careers of R. Kelly and Eric Benet. After meeting B. in the late l980s, he built her multi-talented presence into a national brand, overseeing all her ventures. Along with caretaking B., he is now involved with several start-ups in digital media.
Michael Shnayerson is a longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair and the author or coauthor of six books, among them My Song, the bestselling memoir by legendary entertainer and civil-rights activist Harry Belafonte. Most recently, he published The Contender (Twelve), an unauthorized biography of New York governor Andrew Cuomo.