Lupita Nyong’o, the stunning actress that I knew from birth, is unstoppable

What you need to know:

  • As is well known now, Lupita had grown up believing her African features and dark complexion would not permit her to gain fame in the West.
  • Micaela Erlinger, a stylist who is one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures, has spoken of Lupita’s “whimsy, her sense of glamour, a sense of the different characters she could play.”

I have known Lupita since her birth, and so have revelled in her new fame at the personal level, and along with millions of Kenyans, have felt honoured by her success as a professional actress and as a fast-emerging beauty icon.

So I feel it’s important to write about how this young Kenyan girl has taken the world by storm and what made her success possible.

Most Kenyans who have been fascinated by her new renown cannot possibly imagine the absolute phenomenon she has become in the world. No Kenyan has ever been as well known as she has, or been a household celebrity in the US.

Renown is nothing new for Kenyans in the US – so many by now regularly build on the well-established tradition of our dynamic young men and women making their significant mark here, and not just in the financial and scientific/technological fields.

At the hallowed Princeton University for example, in whose vicinity I am now living, the university spokesman is former Kenyan journalist Martin Mbugua, and Simon Gikandi is a full professor of Literature.

Across the state line at the University of New York at Buffalo is Makau Mutua, who is recognised as an outstanding global legal intellect and who has earned numerous American distinctions.

Lupita, of course, has now eclipsed all other Kenyans’ eminence. Recently, she was catapulted to yet higher global fame by joining the rarified ranks of world beauty greats who are ambassadresses of Lancome, the classiest of classy cosmetic brands which is known for selecting only a few models, all of stunning beauty.

There are only three other Lancome ambassadresses – Kate Winslett, Penelope Cruz and Julia Roberts – and all three have been famous for over a decade. Lupita’s distinction in joining this select group can be measured by the fact that she became known only a few months ago. And that she is black.

Lupita’s accomplishments have been burnished by another equally rare accolade, a full-page article about her in the NY Times by the renowned Guy Trebay, who wrote that her rapid journey from the complete unknown to a star of astonishing proportions was due to her incomparable “intelligence, composure and luminous beauty,” according to industry experts who have come to know and been mesmerised by her natural radiance.

LASTING IMPACT

Micaela Erlinger, a stylist who is one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures, has spoken of Lupita’s “whimsy, her sense of glamour, a sense of the different characters she could play.”

Bethann Hardison, another famed Hollywood executive, said “here came this little girl, she is dark, you cannot deny it. And people are saying Whoa, Whoa, she looks good in this stuff.”

As is well known now, Lupita had grown up believing her African features and dark complexion would not permit her to gain fame in the West. Clearly, in a world still dominated by conceptions of beauty being primarily marketed by the West, being black is an obstacle to being seen as universally beautiful.

That negative stereotype has been broken by a number of African women, beginning with Iman, but hopefully, Lupita’s success will have a more lasting impact.

One has to have been in the US in the pre-Academy Awards period to know what Lupita’s stardom has meant. She was being talked of as the favourite to win the Best Supporting Actress award, and yet the coverage she was receiving in the media and the film world outpaced by many times the talk about the much bigger awards that were going to be won on Academy night: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Film.

Her “innate beauty” had taken the Western world’s imagination by storm. It is reported that many major aspirants for the Academy awards were in absolute shock that this young Kenyan and African girl had so outshone the many others who were so widely known and beloved earlier.

Such is her glory that anyone who knows her is automatically sought after. Every single person I met in that period who knew I was Kenyan would ask if I knew who she was before her fame. I would myself become an instant local celebrity when I would say that I have known Lupita since her birth in 1983 in Mexico, since I visited her parents then who have been my closest friends for decades.

None of this is to say that there are no murmurs of dissent about Lupita. Some feel she has not fully honoured the Africanness which catapulted her to fame by not pushing for her continent’s designs and fabrics as part of her new wardrobe. Others say she has focused on her beauty rather than her professional skill as her primary strength.

But clearly, as a young woman who has so unexpectedly been overwhelmed by fame, she needs a bit of time to recover her breath and to assert herself more forcefully in charting her future.

Mr Lone is a veteran journalist and a former envoy with the United Nations