Reading: #132: Bevy Smith (It Gets Greater Later)

Imagine that at 45 you nab your first TV show, your second at age 50. You snag your first book deal at 53. Now imagine that you decide your passion project is acting. You get called in for one scene but they like you so much they call you in for a second episode. As Beverly “Bevy” Smith, author of the new memoir, “Bevelations: Lessons from a Mutha, Auntie, Bestie” (https://amzn.to/3qVjRAZ), claims: “There is one mantra to live by: it gets greater later.” And she’s got the receipts to prove it. Smith grew up a nerdy, shy but “spoiled” kid in Harlem trying to fit in with “a bunch of mean girls.” She broke into the cliques by dressing well, dancing, and having a quick wit. Attitude served her well and made her tons of money as a fashion advertising executive when she landed at Vibe Magazine, just as hip-hop was scaling. “They didn’t have luxury advertising,” Smith says. “Systemic racism assumed that black and brown people would not be interested in fabulous clothes. And if they were interested, they couldn’t afford them.” Smith showed them otherwise, hobnobbing in Paris and Milan, breaking Gucci and Dior and Dolce & Gabbana. She left to do the same for Rolling Stone magazine until she left there to reinvent again, or as she told her boss—“to write, act, juggle, be a helicopter pilot.” Smith says: “When pivoting, be an explorer. We don’t know where the [next] gift is going to come from.”