Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  I was getting taller and very long-legged; I felt it would be just the right thing for me. I used to love to mess with my hair, too. I went to beauty school in the evening [this is the curriculum for which Smokey Robinson had loaned her the money] and on Saturdays to Hudson’s department store for modeling classes. They gave me a little hatbox and I felt very grand coming home with that little hatbox in my hand and all the things I had learned in my mind.

  “She did wear beautiful clothes; there was always some sort of flair to them,” Aimee Kron recalled.

  A lot of them she made herself. She was inspired by colors and fabrics. There was a regal air about her. Though I thought she would have looked better with more weight on her, the thinness emphasized her cheekbones. She had fantastic bone structure and played it up to her advantage with just the right makeup. Sometimes, she looked as if she had stepped out of a fashion advertisement. She was sophisticated for her age.

  It was in the middle of her junior year at Cass that Diana started to participate in some of the school’s extracurricular activities, such as the swimming team and two youth clubs, the Lettergirl Club and the Hexagons. She was good at whatever she set her mind to doing, and she also liked the fact that she had become more popular. Still, it would seem she was heavily criticized by teachers and students no matter what she did, even if she demonstrated focus and determination—which, one would think, would have been applauded in a student at Cass, not condemned.

  For instance, there are several former instructors at Cass who remember her pejoratively as “Diane, that girl who said she’d be a star.” One of her teachers, Robert Kraft, recalled, “She wasn’t a very good student because she was so certain she would find success in show business. I had her in my English class, and many times she would sit in my class and hide behind a book while she painted her fingernails bright colors. When I told her she should work harder on English, she told me she didn’t need to, ‘because I’m going to make it as a singer without it.’”

  Mary Constance, another teacher, recalled catching Diana staring dreamy-eyed at a newspaper article during study hall. When asked why she wasn’t studying, Constance says Diana replied, “‘You know I’m going to be a singer, don’t you?’ She handed me the clipping, which she apparently had cut out of the Detroit News. It was a story on the Primes. ‘I know these guys,’ she boasted. ‘And I sing on weekends, myself.’” Constance recalled, “I looked at her and said to myself, ‘Oh, you poor child. You’ll never make it.’”

  One has to wonder if these kinds of memories are skewed by the fact that Diana, of course, did make it. She’s also known as someone whose temper and difficult nature have become the stuff of show business legend. It wouldn’t be surprising if the reputation she eventually earned as an adult superstar has clouded people’s memories and their perception of her as a youngster. Or, was everyone really as unsupportive of her aspirations as suggested by their comments? If so, that, too, is telling.

  There wasn’t much money for anyone during those years in the Detroit area, and most of the youngsters did whatever they could to earn a little extra cash for extracurricular activities. Mary, Florence and Barbara took part-time jobs babysitting or working in record stores. For her part, Diana became employed by J. L. Hudson’s department store, again an interesting choice. Hudson’s, whose enormous fifteen-floor structure sprawled over an entire square block on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, was considered the most prestigious store in the city. With its uniformed doormen smiling at and ushering in well-to-do shoppers, it was the place to shop in downtown Detroit, if a person could actually afford to do so.

  Although Diana had always fantasized about shopping there, for the time being she had to settle for clearing tables in one of the emporium’s four restaurants. It’s been said that she was the first black employee at Hudson’s ever allowed outside of the kitchen. Somehow, that doesn’t seem likely. It sounds more like a Motown publicity line, a tribute to their artist’s poise, style and determination. However, there’s no debating that black employees were few and far between at Hudson’s—Fred Ross’s sister did work as an elevator operator there—and the customers seldom made them feel comfortable. “I’d just smile at them,” Diana said of the mostly white customers, “and they’d look at me suspiciously as if there was no way I could be so nice and so black at the same time. One woman kept coming up to me and saying, ‘Are you still here?’ And I would say, ‘Why, yes, ma’am. You didn’t think I would quit, now did you?’”

  Diana’s friend Rita Griffin, who is presently a successful and respected journalist in Detroit, was a cub reporter at the time Diana worked at Hudson’s. She recalled, “Diana would call me from the store to tell me what the Supremes would be doing next. As I tried to take notes, I had to keep asking her to talk louder because all I could hear was the clinking and clanging of pots and pans in the background.”

  When Diana graduated from Cass Technical High School in June 1962 with a C average, she was voted Best Dressed Girl. But it was really because Diana had become a recording artist at Motown that opinions about her began to change. Some students started to gravitate to her because she had become somewhat famous, at least locally. Others, of course, continued to be skeptical of her, especially when she played her records in millinery class, or when she brought them along with her to school functions and lip-synched to them even if the other Supremes weren’t present. It wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if she had an intuition during these years that the very same teachers and students who looked at her with raised eyebrows would one day be discussing her with a biographer. Say what you will about her, Diana always had a sense of destiny about herself. “I knew I was going to do something with my life,” she would conclude, many years later. “I tried to keep my eyes on the prize …”

  1962

  By 1962, Diana Ross and Mary Wilson had graduated from high school. Florence decided to drop out in the eleventh grade. Florence said that her brother Cornell was very upset about her leaving school. He grabbed her one day and berated her, telling her that he wished their mother had listened to him when he made her leave the group and had never allowed her to rejoin the act. “Well, I done quit now,” Florence remembered telling him. He blamed Florence’s singing for her lack of interest in education—which of course was true. Meanwhile, Barbara Martin announced that she was pregnant. According to what Florence recalled, “Diana thought that was bad for our image. So, Barbara left the group because Diana didn’t want her in the group.”

  “No more fourth girls,” Diana apparently decided—this according to Mary. “If we can’t make it as a trio, then we just won’t make it.” The Supremes therefore continued recording in the studio and appearing at local engagements as a trio.

  Also at this time, Berry Gordy switched the group from Tamla to the Motown label, which was now considered the home-base label of Hitsville. In fact, no matter which of the Hitsville subsidiaries the acts recorded for—there was also one called Gordy, another called Soul, and a few more—it was always just said that they recorded for Motown. Their very first album release was called Meet the Supremes, which was basically a compilation of some of the group’s single releases and B-sides until that time. Needless to say, because none of the sounds had been a commercial success, an album featuring them was not a big seller either.

  Thanks to a number-one hit record called “Please Mr. Postman,” another female group, the Marvelettes, had quickly become the most popular girl group at the label. With the exception of one member who had just graduated, the Marvelettes were all high school students from Inkster, Michigan. At first, there were five in the group, then four and later, three. While the Supremes were still searching for an identifiable sound, these girls seemed to have immediately found one. Although their sound was adolescently out of tune, it was still rich and somehow appealing. To demonstrate their importance to the label, when Berry hosted the annual company Christmas party in 1962, each of the Marvelettes got a one-third-carat diamond r
ing. In contrast, the Supremes were given transistor radios. Everyone at the company seemed proud of the Marvellettes’ success except, it would seem, Diana.

  Actually, Diana’s true feelings about the Marvelettes had first surfaced when the girls recorded “Please Mr. Postman.” Many of the company’s artists were present at that session to register opinions and suggestions as to how to make the song better. Florence even worked with her friend, Gladys Horton, the Marvelettes’ lead singer, on “Please Mr. Postman,” to help polish her delivery. There was really no sense of competition among the artists at this time. Everyone seemed certain that the record would become a hit, and they all wanted to be a part of it. Diana, though, found the whole scene not only condescending but annoying.

  “So, what makes you girls think you’re so hot?” she demanded of the group as a whole. They all looked at her with confused, hurt expressions. Diana continued, now directing her attention to Gladys. “You think you’re real good, huh?” she said, according to Gladys’s recollection. “Well, who do you think you are coming down here and getting a hit record before me? That’s what I want to know. You all are gonna end up on Dick Clark before me!”

  Gladys recalled, “Appearing on American Bandstand was Diane’s dream. She wanted to be on the show more than anything. We all thought surely she must be joking and I think we started laughing. But she was quite serious.”

  “I’m next,” Diana said. “And don’t you all forget it.” Then, she turned round and walked out of the room, always one to make a stunning exit. Mary and Florence were embarrassed by her outburst. “Everyone was left with their mouths open,” Gladys recalled. “But she was telling the truth about how she felt so clearly, so honestly, you had to laugh.”

  By the summer of 1962, other Motown artists—Mary Wells, the Contours and the Miracles—were all finding success on the record charts (with “The One Who Really Loves You,” “Do You Love Me?” and “You’ve Really Got a Hold of Me” respectively). Meanwhile, Marvin Gaye was on a roll with his hits “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” and “Hitch Hike.” Also, Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks of the Primes had now been joined by three other singers—Otis Williams, Elbridge Bryant and Melvin Franklin—to become the Temptations. Berry Gordy continued to take talented black music-makers off the streets of Detroit—youngsters with fantasies of finding fame and fortune as performers, writers and musicians—and build a bridge for them into the world of their dreams. “Give them all an opportunity and see which ones hit,” became his motto.

  In November 1962, Berry organized the first Motor Town Revue, a touring show of the best of the Motown stars, all together and on one stage. The itinerary of concert dates would cover much of the South, an area still largely segregated two years before the passing of federal civil rights legislation. Of course Berry realized that sending his groups to that region could be risky, but the tour made good business sense. “Everyone will go out but the girls,” he decided, referring to the Supremes.

  When Diana discovered that her group would be excluded from the tour, she set out to change Berry’s mind. Just eighteen by this time, and always armed with her will of iron, she had long ago learned how to influence Berry: be persistent and, if necessary, difficult. However, Gordy was worried about putting the Supremes on this tour. In his view, they were too vulnerable to send to the South. He thought of the other women on the label as being tough, streetwise and capable of defending themselves if it became necessary. However, the Supremes were unusual; they were “the girls.” They had to be protected, or at least that’s how he saw it.

  Diana pleaded with Berry, telling him that if her group were excluded it wouldn’t be at all fair. She was so persistent that Gordy, impressed by her spirit, finally acquiesced and decided that the Supremes could join the tour. Among the other artists on the original Motor Town Revue were Mary Wells, the Miracles, the Marvelettes, the Contours and Marvin Gaye, with Martha and the Vandellas—practically the entire Motown roster with hits under their belts, all of whom probably thought they were among the luckiest kids on the planet. Going out on the road meant not only a chance to perform for the masses but also to obtain their freedom. They would now have the opportunity to function without parental supervision outside the boundaries of hometown Detroit and truly discover another part of the country. Some of their adventures on the road wouldn’t be pleasant but, for the young Supremes and the rest of the artists on the tour, the experiences would prove in many ways to be life-altering.

  The Motor Town Revue

  The Motor Town Revue tour was scheduled to begin on 2 November 1962 at the Franklin Theater in Boston, Massachusetts, and then proceed to nineteen more cities in twenty-three days. Fifteen of the engagements were in the deep, dangerous South, beginning with a night in North Carolina on 5 November. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina were also on the itinerary. After Thanksgiving, the revue would pick up in Memphis on 1 December and then proceed to New York’s Apollo Theater for a week, where it would close. Esther Edwards, Berry’s sister, booked most of the engagements herself and saw to it that the Supremes were paid $290 a week. However, all but ten dollars a week for each girl was sent back to Detroit. Although the Supremes thought they would get the balance of their money when they finally returned home, they would learn that those funds had been deposited into a Motown bank account to pay for the company’s expenses on their behalf. So, in the end, each girl made just the ten dollars a week for this first tour.

  On the first Motor Town Revue, there were, as expected, almost as many romantic entanglements among the youngsters as there were hit record collaborations. Of course, what else could be expected when a bunch of hot-blooded teenagers and young adults have the opportunity to experience the joy of popularity and the euphoria of making music—and love—on an extended bus tour? Some of the fellows couldn’t control their sexual appetites for the passions and favors of assorted Vandellas and Marvelettes. However, the male singers wouldn’t dare touch the Supremes, especially Diana, because they feared her already well-known connection to the boss. Therefore, the Supremes definitely had a lot less fun than everyone else on that tour.

  “Oh, c’mon, let me drive in the car with you fellows,” Diana asked Bobby Rodgers of the Miracles as the tour headed to New Haven, Connecticut. The Miracles had their own car; they were the stars of the show and didn’t have to sit in the bus with the others. The contingent was pulled over to a rest stop when Diana approached Bobby. “No, Diane,” he told her. “Claudette will kill you. You get back in the car with your little group.”

  “But they’re nobodies,” she said, pouting. “I want to be a somebody, like you guys.”

  Eventually, Diana returned to the stifling bus, where veteran musicians smoked awful cigars and played card games in the back while the artists in the rest of the bus snoozed and watched the scenery pass by them. Sometimes, Diana would venture into the musicians’ domain and try to get into a game with the guys. They would always shoo her away. “Oh, you’re just afraid I’ll beat you,” she said, challenging then.

  “Jesus Christ, Diane. Just leave us alone,” Marv Tarplin told her. He was the guitarist Smokey had stolen from the Primettes.

  “Come back up here, girl,” Florence told Diana from the front of the bus. “Your place is up here, not back there.”

  Diana walked up the aisle and collapsed into a seat next to Florence.

  “Now, where’s Mary?” Florence asked.

  Diana shrugged. “Somewhere on this damn bus, I guess. Do I look like her mama?”

  Perhaps it was at this time that the real differences in the backgrounds of the Supremes began to have an impact on their relationships with one another. Diana’s was certainly a very different story than that of her singing partners.

  Florence Ballard’s father, Jessie Lambert, was a self-proclaimed hobo who spent most of his youth sleeping on trains and in graveyards. He eventually became a self-taught blues guitarist and would end up working at Chevrolet in Detroit by the age of tw
enty-four. His mother had been shot in the back when he was an infant. He was then adopted, and took his new family’s name of Ballard. He married Florence’s mother Lurlee when the two were just teenagers; Lurlee was only fourteen. The two had a large family; Florence was the eighth of twelve children. Therefore, jockeying for attention and recognition had become a way of life for her. Most of the time she acted sassy, independent, quick-witted and impetuous, but she often plunged into deep depressions from which only her mother could rescue her. Jessie died at the age of fifty-four, while the Ballards were living in the Brewster Projects. He had worked for Chevrolet until his death. “When my father died, I went through a real mental thing,” Florence once recalled. “As a matter of fact, Diana Ross sang at his funeral, and she said it was the last funeral she would ever sing at because it shook her up, too, I guess. He was lowered in the ground and I cried and cried. Ever since then, I don’t like to go to funerals. If I do, I never go to the cemetery because I don’t want to see anybody lowered into the ground. (It’s worth noting here that Diana did not go to the cemetery after Florence’s funeral service, when Florence’s casket was lowered into the ground.)

  Though the two had become friends, Mary’s background was very different from Florence’s. She had been “loaned” to her mother’s younger sister at the age of three. For the next six years, she grew up in a comfortable middle-class environment, believing the story that I. V. and John Pippin were her natural parents. I. V., a perfectionist, was long on discipline and short on praise, which affected Mary well into her adult years. She blended in, rarely spoke out against what she perceived as injustice, and always did whatever she felt necessary to ensure that she was well liked. As a result no one disliked her, but often it was difficult to know exactly where one stood with her. She wasn’t blunt or direct like Florence and Diana. Rather, she was sweet and diplomatic, always trying to be a good girl, never really seeing the bad in a person, only the good. It’s interesting that Florence was sometimes put off by Mary’s diplomacy. Years later, Florence would admit to Peter Benjaminson that she preferred to deal with Diana than with Mary, “because Diane is more of a straightforward person; she don’t bite her tongue, she will tell you how she feels.”