December 6, 1937 – July 20, 2005
Sylvia Brent Elliott, a pioneer black model, key figure in the St. Louis civil rights and arts communities, and high achiever in education as a senior citizen, passed Wednesday, July 20, 2005 at the age of 67.
Elliott was born in St. Louis on December 6, 1937, the only child of Adam and Althea Brent, and was raised in a segregated Chicago.
“Reflecting on my childhood, I can honestly say segregation was good,” Elliot wrote near the end of her life in her master’s thesis, a collection of personal essays. “There certainly was no identity confusion and no hostility. I was where I belonged – it was home and it felt like home.”
Elliot returned to St. Louis her senior year of high school after her mother was tragically killed in an auto accident. She graduated from Sumner High School in 1956.
She attended Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois for 2½ years. There, she wrote in her thesis, she found her voice. “It was a voice of tolerance and understanding, one that came out of my experience of country white girls pulling the shower curtain back to see if I had a tail.”
Elliott returned to school 40 years later, graduating from the University of Alabama with her bachelor’s of arts in African and African American Thought in May 2001.
In the interim, Elliott worked for United Airlines and Mohawk Airlines and served as a volunteer in the St. Louis community with the NAACP and the Urban League. She also served informally as a consultant for many companies when they brought black executives to work in St. Louis. She worked for and had articles published in the St. Louis American and The Limelight Magazine. She also worked in arts administration with The Center of Contemporary Arts and Dance St. Louis.
Elliott recently completed her master’s of fine arts in creative writing at the University of Alabama. While in graduate school, she performed often with University of Alabama dance groups and in 2003 appeared in a UA theater production of “Country Life.”
She was scheduled to graduate on August 13, 2005, when she became ill. After hearing of her illness, Dr. Hank Lazer, vice president of academic affairs for the university, pushed to have her diploma printed early and confirmed her graduation at her bedside in Hospice of West Alabama, where she died of cancer five days later.
Elliott lived her life with flair and style. She traveled in 60 countries and was one of the first African-American high-fashion models for magazines such as Glamour, Vogue and the New York Times Magazine. “I came of age at a time to be the ‘first,'” she wrote, “unthreatened, unafraid and unstoppable.”
In 1964, she married Sherman Darby, who later worked for B.B. King as his road manager. They had a son, Marcus, who was later adopted by Forriss D. Elliott, whom Syliva married in 1968. The Elliotts had two children together, Adam and Samantha.
The only child of Adam and Althea Brent (both deceased), Sylvia Brent Elliott’s legacy will be lived through her children, Marcus (Heather) Elliott of St. Louis, Adam (Stephanie) Elliott of Atlanta, and Samantha (Calvin) Elliott Briggs of Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and her grandchildren, Micah, Alexandria, Sofia, Calvin Jr. and Lauryn.
Sylvia also maintained close relationships with her step-children: Troi Elliott-Hockett of Indianapolis and Forriss (Leslie) Elliott Jr. of Atlanta, as well as the fathers of her children, Sherman Darby of Tempe, Arizona and Forriss D. Elliott Sr. of Atlanta.
In the tradition of her giving nature, Sylvia made a donation of life for the purpose of medical research. Therefore, in lieu of traditional services a memorial will be held on Saturday, August 20 from 10 a.m.-noon at the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission on Delmar Boulevard. For more information, please contact Samantha Elliott Briggs at (205) 391-4573 or micahandcj@hotmail.com.
