Toukie Smith, 1970s model and '227' actress, dies at 74

Mixed · 2Toukie Smith, a model and actress who played Eva Rawley on the NBC sitcom 227, has died at the age of 74. 1 2 Mixed · 2Her twins, Airyn and Julian, announced that she died after a long battle with multiple sclerosis; Deadline gives the date as 4 November, and The Hollywood Reporter says she died on a Wednesday in a New York hospital. 1 2 Right · 1The Daily Mail, which does not give a date of death, says she died in a New York City hospital and that her twins are 31. 3

Centre · 1In a statement her children said: “Toukie was a force of nature. She left an indelible mark on our hearts and on everyone lucky enough to know her.” 2 Left · 1Born Doris Smith in Philadelphia on 25 September 1952, she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and began modelling in 1972. 1 Left · 1She appeared in a Yves St. Laurent photo campaign and in magazines including Vogue, Ebony, Cosmopolitan, Redbook and Seventeen, and Bloomingdale's named her its model of the year in 1978. 1

Mixed · 2She modelled for her brother, designer Willi Smith, and for designers and artists including Hubert de Givenchy, Thierry Mugler, Issey Miyake, Patrick Kelly, Alvaro, Antonio Lopez, Jean-Paul Goude and Guy Bourdin. 1 2 Mixed · 2Willi Smith died in 1987 of complications from AIDS; The Hollywood Reporter gives his age as 39, while the Daily Mail says 37. 1 3 Mixed · 2On screen she played Angie, assistant to Sheena Easton's character Caitlin Davies, in three episodes of Miami Vice's fourth season in 1987-88. 1 2

Mixed · 2She joined 227 as Eva Rawley, an artist who becomes manager of the Lexington Place building owned by Marla Gibbs' character; Deadline says she appeared in about two dozen episodes, becoming a series regular for the 1989-90 final season, while The Hollywood Reporter says she recurred through May 1990. 1 2 Mixed · 2Her film roles included The Preacher's Wife, I Like It Like That and Joe's Apartment, with Deadline also citing Me and Him (1988) and Goosed and The Hollywood Reporter adding Talkin' Dirty After Dark (1991). 1 2 Left · 1The Hollywood Reporter adds that she left modelling in the early 1980s and ran an eponymous restaurant on West Houston Street in New York in the 1990s. 1

Right · 1The Daily Mail says she opened the restaurant Toukie's with De Niro in 1994 at 220 West Houston Street in SoHo, that it closed in 1998, and that she also ran a catering business, Toukie's Taste, for three years. 3 Right · 1Quoting the Los Angeles Times and New York Times from 1990 and 1992, the Daily Mail has her describing her nickname's origin, her hair as "an accessory", and herself as "an actress first. I'm not a sometime model." 3 Mixed · 2Smith and Robert De Niro were partners from 1988 to 1996; their twins, Airyn and Julian, were conceived by in vitro fertilization and delivered by a surrogate. 1 2

Right · 1The Daily Mail says the twins were born in October 1995, that Smith and De Niro dated on and off, and that Airyn came out as a transgender woman in 2025 with her parents' support. 3 Centre · 1Deadline lists her survivors as her children, her brother Norman Smith-Harllee and nephew Eliazar Smith-Harllee. 2