Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  There was more than the usual tension between the three Supremes during this coaching period. Their teachers charged that Mary and Florence weren’t working as hard as they should have been on their tasks. However, both of them felt that Diana was trying to make them look bad by being so utterly conscientious. In retrospect, the coaches now feel that Diana’s focus was more on how she looked than on how the girls looked as a group. “If you think she learned all of that stuff in artist development for the benefit of the Supremes, forget it!” suggested Mickey Stevenson. “In my opinion, she learned it for herself.”

  If Diana was going to dedicate herself, and it was clear that she would, then Berry would add to her workload. She certainly didn’t mind. Therefore, for her—and only for her, not the other two girls—Berry decided to augment the Motown training with special lessons at the John Roberts Powers School for Social Grace in Detroit. In 1965, there weren’t many black models in the pages of Vogue—a magazine Diana read voraciously—but, with Berry’s encouragement, she began to feel that she could rise above and beyond a restrictive black look. She started to experiment with different custom-made wigs of human hair. She was particularly fascinated by Twiggy, the trendy fashion model of the era, and the technique with which she applied her makeup—dark and dramatic eye shadow and heavy, heavy lashes.

  The problem with the John Roberts Powers tutoring, though, was that neither Diana nor Berry told Mary and Florence about it. “Again, it wasn’t what Diane did,” Mary would say. “It was the way she did it. By not telling us, it just made it clear that she had plans of her own that didn’t include us. That hurt.” Still, most of the female Motown stars eagerly followed her example by wearing startling eye makeup and flamboyant wigs. Not that Diana Ross invented cosmetics and fake hair, but at Hitsville she was certainly the one responsible for defining standards of glamour for the other female artists. “I didn’t know what to do with a wig when I first put it on,” Martha Reeves has said. “Diane Ross, she knew right away.”

  Donald McKayle, who would go on to choreograph many of the Supremes’ television appearances, recalled of Diana, “I met her when she was twenty-two and enormously popular, so I didn’t know what to expect. She asked me, ‘What sign are you?’ I told her, ‘Cancer.’ She said, ‘Uh oh. That may not be good. I don’t get along with Cancers at all.’ I asked, ‘How do you know that?’ And she motioned over to Florence and whispered to me sort of conspiratorially, ‘She’s a Cancer.’ Anyway,” he continues, “though she had the glamour and loved every minute of it, she was never seduced by it. She didn’t allow it to cloud the vision of what she wanted out of this business. She used her success rather than allow it to use her. While the other girls at Motown were pretty much who they were, Diana was nothing if not a chameleon.”

  “Are you mad because I’m the lead singer?”

  At the end of their four-month Motown training program (and two extra months for Diana at John Roberts Powers) all three Supremes were pretty much polished and groomed within an inch of their lives. Each had become a girl/woman, still youthful but now poised and disciplined beyond her years. In the final analysis, Diana and Mary were excited about all they had learned in preparation for their important Copacabana engagement, but Florence wasn’t. “Why are they trying to make us so phony?” she asked one day after rehearsal. She was frustrated. It had been a grueling day. “Personally, I think we look silly with hats and canes,” she complained as she collapsed into a chair

  “Well, we’re stars now, Blondie,” Diane reminded her. “And Berry says it’s time to act like stars.”

  “Well, I’m no star,” she said, seeming fed up with the whole thing. “I’m just Flo, honey.”

  Diana shrugged her shoulders and walked away. After all the work they’d just done, if Florence Ballard wanted to remain down-home and earthy, that was certainly her prerogative. Diana, however, had very different aspirations. By now, she and Berry were making love, music and money together.

  Mary and Florence both later said they never once discussed with Diana her obvious new relationship with Berry. The three of them were in their early twenties, an age when love and romance were surely on their minds. One would think that the subject would have been broached somewhere along the way, not only considering the amount of time they had to spend in each other’s company but also the impact that the romance was having on the group. Apparently, though, it was never dealt with among them. Just as they didn’t discuss it when told that Diana would be the only one singing leads, her romance with Berry was also a taboo subject among the girls.

  Maybe it was understandable. After all, the three Supremes were really not the best of friends. They were girls from the same neighborhood who sang together in a hugely successful singing group and, as a result, became inextricably tied to one another. They tried to get along, and they did have some warm moments along the way. But, to say they were best friends is stretching things. Best friends talk about important things that trouble them, that make them uneasy or unhappy. Best friends share important, life-altering decisions and ask for input about such choices. These three clearly did not do that.

  It’s interesting that Mary Wilson doesn’t see it that way, though. Mary has always been an idealist, a romantic—especially when it comes to her history with Florence and Diana. “We’d been friends—for life we thought—but now our friendship was a means to an end, a license for Diane to behave exactly as she chose. That hurt,” Mary wrote in Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme. “Flo and I had been parts of Diane’s life—and she of ours—for so long now, we weren’t just dealing with a friend but a family member. The Supremes became partners in a kind of marriage; each partner sees the other’s flaws but tolerates them, because divorce is out of the question …” Mary can’t be blamed for seeing things as she does where the Supremes are concerned. Whereas Diana and Florence had ambivalent feelings about each other, and even about Mary, she was unequivocally devoted to both of them. It’s not an act. It’s heart-wrenching stuff for her, the history of the Supremes and what the three of them achieved. In her view, they really were her family. She just wanted everyone to get along and be happy.

  Diana is, maybe not surprisingly, much more realistic about her relationship with Mary and Florence. In her book, Secrets of a Sparrow, she put it this way: “Mary, Florence and I were not true sisters. The girls and I started out as three strangers who were randomly placed together. When difficulties arose, we did not have the kind of bond that automatically exists among family members. We didn’t have the kind of commitment or understanding that no matter what happened, we were together forever.”

  In an earlier interview, she was even more perceptive when she recalled, “I wish I’d had [a close] relationship with Mary and Florence. We would go onstage and sing together, but we never really got deep down inside of how we were feeling. You know, ‘Are you mad at me because I’m the lead singer?’ ‘Does it make you mad that I sing in front of you?’” She concluded sadly, “We never talked about the heart.”

  About a week before the Copa engagement, the entire Motown contingent took off for the East Coast, where they would check into a hotel in New York. For the next few nights, Berry had them break in the act at a nightclub in Wildwood called the Rip-Tide, as a producer might have done in testing a show before it went to Broadway.

  “Now, look, Gil, here’s what I want you to do,” Berry told him during rehearsal one day. “Before each song, you turn from the band and just softly say the name of the next song so that Diane knows where the show is going.”

  “What!” Gil exclaimed. “I ain’t tellin’ her nothin.” She needs to know her music, Berry. She needs to know what the lineup is. I ain’t tellin’ her nothin’.”

  Diana, standing on stage next to them, exploded, “First of all, stop talking about me like I’m not here,” she told Berry, according to Gil’s memory. “And secondly,” she added, turning to Gil, “You don’t gotta tell me nothin’, Gil Askey.” She used his first and last name
, as she often did with people when she was angry with them. “I know my show. So, don’t bother trying to help me out …”

  “And not only that, I might change songs on you at the Copa because I have the authority to do just that,” Gil said, turning to Berry, who nodded affirmatively. “So if the show loses momentum and I decide to switch things around, you [Diana] need to know this music so you can keep up.”

  “I told you, I know my damn music and I know my damn songs and I know my damn show,” she said, now very angry. “You just know your show, Gil Askey,” she said, storming off. “’Cause after four months of this bullshit, I sure as hell know mine.”

  The two men shared looks of bemusement. “She’s somethin’ else, that one,” Gil said laughing.

  “Yeah, I’ll say,” Gordy agreed.

  It was while in Wildwood, however, that Diana began having reservations about the show, especially after the first tryout performance. She made her feelings known at a group meeting the next day. She looked wan and childlike, as if she hadn’t been getting enough rest. Her hair was pulled into a tight knot, and she wore no makeup, no wig. “There just aren’t enough hits in the act,” she told Berry, wearily. “I’m starting to think we’re making a huge mistake.”

  “I agree,” Florence said.

  Mary also nodded her head and said, “It’s been bothering me, too. I mean, if I was someone who paid money to see the Supremes, I’d want to hear more of the hit records I knew.”

  Berry had heard this complaint before from Diana and was prepared for it. He’d already discussed a strategy with Gil Askey, also present for the meeting. “Okay,” he said, trying to act unruffled. “Gil, look, what if we take out all the crap we’ve been rehearsing for the last four months. All of it. And just replace it with the hits,” he said. “That’s simple enough, right?”

  “Well, sure,” Gil said. “No skin off my nose. We can stick in ‘Let Me Go the Right Way’ and ‘Your Heart Belongs to Me,’ too,” he said, naming two songs that were released that the public didn’t even know. He was being cynical, suggesting that the girls didn’t have many hits at all.

  “Sounds good,” Berry said. “Okay, we got … what? A couple days? Let’s just redesign the whole goddamn show and throw out all the other crap and make the girls happy.”

  It was such a manipulation, the Supremes could see right through it. Diana rolled her eyes. “Berry, we’re not stupid,” she said tiredly. “You could take us seriously, for once, you know? We do have brains. We’re not just little dolls. You’d be surprised. Sometimes we do have ideas and sometimes they’re good ones.”

  Mary and Florence nodded.

  “Look, I know that,” Berry told her. “Just trust me, will you?” He and Diana shared their secret look. “This thing is going to work,” Berry insisted. “So, do you girls trust me, or not?”

  “Well, personally—” Florence began. Mary apparently kicked her under the table or did something else to stop her from talking because she didn’t finish her sentence.

  “Oh my God,” Diana said, completely exasperated. “Okay. Okay. I trust you, all right? Let’s just do the goddamn show the way we have rehearsed it. But, if it fails, Berry Gordy, you know I’m gonna be blaming you.”

  Berry smiled. “Somehow, I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he told her.

  The Supremes at the Copa

  Since the early 1940s, the Copacabana in New York City had been located at 10 East 60th Street. A small nightclub, the decor was Art Deco throughout. The main show room was decorated with artificial coconut palms illuminated in blue and pink hues. (It was actually nicer than it sounds.) All of the men who worked there were dressed in tuxedos, the woman in black cocktail dresses. It was also known for its Copa Girls, four shapely women who would come onto the stage and dance before and after the headliners—sometimes in mink bras and panties. The club’s minuscule round tables were so close together, private conversations were impossible. The headliners had to walk from the kitchen in the back of the club through the audience and up onto a small square stage that doubled as a dance floor. This author had the opportunity to see the Supremes at the Copa several times. Believe it: if you wanted to see them perform up close and personal, the Copa was the place to do it. A front-row seat meant that you were about an arm’s length away from the ladies, so close you could hear the beads on their gowns jangling back and forth. So close, you could smell their perfume. Years later, Diana would admit that, just before going onstage, she would often put on just a little more perfume than necessary in the hope that some young fan in the front might catch a memorable whiff.

  As it happened, the Copa debut for the Supremes on 29 July 1965 was an extremely upsetting day for Berry and his family, and not because of the opening. His sister Louyce had recently died after a brief illness. In a strange twist of circumstances, the family buried her the morning of the Copa date. They then all took a plane from Detroit to New York for the Supremes’ opening, so this was certainly a bittersweet affair. It was typical of the Gordys, though, to adhere to the age-old entertainment world axiom that the show must go on, no matter the travail.

  By the time Berry arrived, the opening act comedian was putting the audience in a good mood. It was important to Berry that the media people and celebrities he had invited—notables such as Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Joey Bishop, Jack Cassidy and Sammy Davis Jr.—had a good time and he did his best by making sure they had enough to drink. His opening-night liquor tab came to $4,000; the Supremes’ salary for the week was $2,750.

  Showtime.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jules Podell is proud to present—the Supremes!” With that announcement, three young ladies from a Detroit housing project approached one of the most popular stages in the world, sashaying through a crowd of smiling and cheering supporters. Nodding with appreciation at members of the audience whose faces they recognized, the girls had finally met the moment for which they had been training for many months. Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard took their places behind three microphones bathed in a soft, blue light. The opening number was “From This Moment On.”* The lyrics hit just the right, optimistic tone. “We’ll be riding high, babe / Every care is gone / From this moment on,” they sang in unison, their voices soaring. After that one it was “Put On a Happy Face,” and right into “I Am Woman.” Then, a couple of their hits: “Baby Love” and “Stop! In the Name of Love.”

  Although the show was an exercise in precision, it quickly became obvious that Diana was not to be perceived as simply another member of the group. She would take her microphone and separate from the lineup, and begin walking about the stage while performing to thrilled ringsiders. Now and then she would melt back into the act’s seamless choreography, but always for just a moment before once again extracting herself from the gentle swing of group unison.

  As the girls performed “Make Someone Happy,” the audience seemed enraptured. Though Diana sang the lead on it, the song generated the most attention when it escalated into a strong three-part harmony conclusion. It was then that the club was filled with cheers. The overall sound, strong and powerful, was informed as much by the singers’ rhythm and blues backgrounds as it was by a show-tune ethos. It was also clear to most observers, at least in that particular moment, that it wasn’t just Diana the audience enjoyed. Mary and Florence contributed greatly to the overall appeal of the act—Florence with her down-home folksiness and Mary with her bubbly, sexy personality. The sound and image in totality was mesmeric. Indeed, in order to have three-part harmony, there have to be three people making it! However, in that moment, Berry couldn’t really see anyone but … the one. Seated in the middle of the room with the Motown contingent, he leaned over to Mickey Stevenson and whispered, “She’s incredible, isn’t she?”

  “Diane?”

  “Yeah, Diane,” Berry said. “Isn’t she amazing? Look at her eyes. They’re hungry, man. She’s not going to be in this group too long. No way. She doesn’t need those girls,” he contin
ued to enthuse, this according at least to Mickey’s later recollection. “She’s got it, whatever it is. She’s got it.” Then, softly, he added, “It’s a shame that …” He left the sentence unfinished. He must have been thinking of his sister Louyce. But this was not a night for sorrow, and he turned his attention to the stage once more. At the end of the song, another stroke of brilliance from Gil Askey, especially considering the hometown, New York audience, the girls sang a few lines of “Time After Time” from the 1947 Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne Broadway show, It Happened in Brooklyn. The crowd ate it up.

  Soon, Diana was making the group introductions.

  “I know if there were teenagers in the house they’d know our names,” she began, her voice slightly hoarse. “But, if you don’t—on the end is Florence Ballard. She’s the quiet one.” Florence gave her a look—scripted, of course.

  “In the middle is Mary Wilson. And she’s the sexy one.” With that, the drummer hit the cymbals; Mary struck a pose.

  “And my name is Diane Ross.” Interestingly, she did not refer to herself as Diana. To some in the crowd who’d come from Detroit, such as her family members, maybe this seemed a purposeful nod to her humble beginnings and to just how far she’d come in a few short but eventful years. After a long pause, and peering shyly out from long eyelashes, she added, “I’m the intelligent one.” More laughter.

  Throughout the show, Diana never failed to deliver. However, it was during the group’s rendition of “Somewhere” from West Side Story that the audience was able to recognize the full spectrum of her talent. She performed the song with everything she had in her. At the very end, she hit the final note with the force of a powerhouse singing star, no longer the awkward, nasal-sounding youngster who’d auditioned for Berry just a few years earlier. As she finished, she bent backwards holding the mic above her head and extending her final note with enough strength and authority to pretty much shake the Copacabana. She’d given 100 percent. It was brilliant. The crowd jumped to its feet—Berry, first. A week later, Aaron Sternfield would note in his review of the opening-night show in Billboard: “Diana, the lead singer, emerged as a solo talent to be reckoned with …”