Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Now that one of the girls had been successfully replaced—at least in these marginal venues—Berry was more confident than ever that Diana was the focus of the Supremes and that tolerating any aggravation from Florence, or even Mary, would no longer be necessary. For Diana, this turn of events served to further isolate her from Mary, with whom she seemed to have less in common than ever before. Was it possible to just replace one of the three Supremes so easily at the all-important Copa return engagement? Apparently not.

  Berry’s plans were ruined by Jules Podell, the famous owner of the club. When he heard that Florence would not be on stage with the show, he was angry. He had enjoyed Florence and remembered that she had been a crowd-pleaser during the last engagement. It’s interesting that he was able to see the value of the original group and the importance of keeping it intact, whereas Berry was ready to just move on to the next phase. Podell said that he wanted the three original Supremes on his stage, just like the first time they played the club. If Berry could not guarantee their presence, the engagement would be cancelled. Both Berry and Diana were surprised by this turn of events. A powerful club owner with mobster connections who had no real interest in the Supremes other than to make money from them was determined to keep the group together. So, maybe it wasn’t all about Diana, after all? Berry was very influenced by the moment. He was too smart to just ignore Podell’s opinion. It was then that he realized that three Supremes—not just one of them—were a valuable company asset. He would have to work to keep them together.

  Florence got back to rehearsals just in time to learn some of the important new routines, but was really not totally prepared for her performance. Still, back with Diana and Mary once again, the Supremes’ return engagement at the Copacabana was another great success for them, Berry and the record company. However, Florence never knew how popular she was with Jules Podell. No one ever told her.

  Diana’s Boston breakdown

  In March 1966, The Supremes opened at the popular Blinstrub’s, a nightclub at 300 Broadway in South Boston known as “The Showplace of New England.” It was a more comfortable engagement for the girls because at least it meant two weeks in the same place. However, Stanley Blinstrub, the club’s owner, was an annoyance. He wanted to know what the girls were going to wear—they actually had to cart out their sequined and beaded gowns for his approval—exactly what they were going to sing and what they would say between songs. He was worse than Jules Podell! It’s interesting that club owners back in those years had so much involvement in just how their audiences would be entertained by headliners, but that’s the way it was and the artists just had to tolerate it—especially the black artists, who felt they were fortunate to even be appearing in these venues.

  By the time the Supremes got to Boston, Diana was down to ninety-three pounds, a consequence of the group’s demanding schedule. When she wasn’t rehearsing new material, she was performing on the concert circuit. When she wasn’t recording in the studio—hundreds of songs, most of which would never even be released—she was appearing on television programs or being interviewed by the press. It was a punishing regime with rarely a day off. The tension of traveling, alone, was enough to wear her down. “Sometimes the stress got so bad, I couldn’t eat,” she would later recall. “I just couldn’t swallow anything. I’d put food in my mouth, but my jaws would clamp together and I couldn’t chew. It got so bad that I couldn’t even tolerate the smell of food. It was too pungent for me. Perhaps it was a form of anorexia. I was becoming skin and bones. Although the Supremes were at the top, I felt as if I were sitting at the bottom of a deep, dark pit.” She was also suffering from severe insomnia. In fact, she was lucky if she managed two hours of sleep a night. This was not a good time at all.

  In fact, earlier in Chicago, Diana had seemed to be losing her grip. Appearing nervous and frustrated in the limousine after a radio interview, she began to talk to herself, repeating questions and answers from the chat with the disc jockey. “What do the Supremes dream about?” had been an interesting question. Diana’s on-air answer was, “Getting married, having children and settling down.” However, in the backseat shadows of a limousine and away from the glare of publicity, she had a very different answer. “What do the Supremes dream about?” she asked rhetorically. “One night I dreamed of a cat leaping on me, digging his claws into my skin. All frightening, terrifying things like that because we’re always being harried. We’re always being rushed.” She sighed heavily. “I feel like a machine.”

  Still looking out the window, Florence muttered, “Yeah. But even a machine stops sometime.”

  Once the group got to Boston, Diana was in bad emotional and physical condition. When Berry spoke to her on the telephone, she didn’t sound well at all. Concerned, he asked Mary and Florence if she had confided in them about her health. Of course she hadn’t. “Still, they said that she seemed like she was blacking out onstage, but managing to keep herself going by sheer will,” Berry recalled years later.

  It was during the third night of the engagement, during the Supremes’ 8:15 p.m. show, that there was trouble. The Supremes walked onto the stage to a resounding reception wearing white chiffon floor-length gowns. Behind them was their large orchestra, and behind it a shimmering pink curtain hung in a repeating swag pattern. With blue and white spotlights on the three singers, the total picture was quite vivid. The show seemed to be going well, even if Diana didn’t have quite the vigor for which she’d become known in recent months. Then, during “I Hear a Symphony,” about halfway into the act, she suddenly stopped singing and began to slowly back away from her microphone. Mary and Florence continued to perform their background parts and execute their choreography, even more broadly in the hope of filling the gap left by Diana’s silence. The confused audience watched as the group’s lead singer then put both hands up to her ears, as if she were trying to block out the music. She started moaning and swaying. “What’s happening to me?” she said, loud enough for those sitting ringside to hear. “I feel so small. I’m getting smaller, smaller … smaller.” Mary and Florence looked stunned, then worried. They turned to the bandleader, Gil Askey, for a cue, but all he could do was shrug his shoulders.

  In the wings, the group’s roadies and other assistants went into a panic. “What’s wrong with her? What’s happening to her?” they asked one another. Diana had always been the one everyone could count on for precision. The entire act had been built around her drive, her commitment, her passion. This business in Boston was a strange unfolding of events, and no one knew what to make of it.

  The girls’ road manager, an older gentleman named Sy MacArthur, calmly walked out onto the stage as the music continued to play. He put his arm around Diana and escorted her off; she continued to mutter incoherently. Mary and Florence finished the song and then followed Diana into the wings. There was about five minutes of chaos. Most people didn’t even know what was going on anyway. Then, word started drifting from the front tables to the middle and to the back: Diana had “some kind of breakdown’ and was “taken off the stage by some guy.”

  Finally, an official announcement was made. “Due to the illness of Miss Diana Ross, the remainder of tonight’s Supremes show will have to be cancelled.”

  Backstage, the scene turned frantic. Diana lay on the dressing-room couch, her head in Florence’s lap. As Florence massaged her temples and tried to reassure her, Diana wept. “I have this pain in my head,” Florence later remembered her saying, “I can’t go on. Not another show. It’s too much pressure.”

  Mary paced the floor, not knowing what to do.

  “Quiet, baby,” Florence said, trying to comfort Diana. She had always been very maternal with her own family, and in this moment she seemed to be the only one who could do the same for Diana—and Diana seemed to sense it. “You don’t have to go on anymore,” she told Diana. “You’ll be all right. We’re all here for you.”

  At that moment, Stanley Blinstrub, who was sixty-eight years old and not the mos
t patient man in the world, burst into the room. “What the hell’s going on?” he said, very upset. “I got a room full of people pissed off at me. Now, you get that singer back out onto that stage,” he told Florence while pointing at Diana, “or there’s gonna be big trouble around here. You hear me, girl?”

  Florence gave him a stern look. “Now you looky here, Mr. Blinstrub,” she said, still cradling Diana’s head in her lap. “If you don’t get out of here, you and I are gonna have a big problem. Now, get!”

  Blinstrub turned to Mary, as if for help. “You heard her,” Mary said, suddenly emboldened. “Get!” For Florence to speak in such a manner to a powerful club owner was unusual, but for Mary to do so was pretty much a miracle.

  “Fine. Then I’m calling Berry Gordy,” Blinstrub said.

  “Fine. You just do that,” Mary said. “Go call him.”

  He stormed out.

  “Not before I do,” Florence decided, turning to Sy MacArthur. “Get me that goddamn phone.”

  Mary, her eyes now spilling over with tears and her mascara running down her cheeks, stood in the background. “Is she gonna be … all right?” she stammered, gazing down at Diana helplessly. Florence looked up at Mary and rolled her eyes.

  Berry was home. He picked up the phone on the first ring.

  “Look, Diane’s sick,” Florence began without even first saying hello. “See, Berry, I told you we’ve been working too much, and now look what’s happened. She’s sick and we can’t continue.” She handed the receiver to their road manager. “Tell him we have to cancel,” she told Sy.

  Sy MacArthur got on the phone and described the situation to Berry, who didn’t know what to make of any of it. He’d never heard of Diana breaking down the way Sy had explained it and thought he had to be exaggerating things. It just didn’t make sense. If it had been Florence, he would have believed it … and sent someone to take her place. But, Diana? It was impossible to fathom.

  “Well, yeah, I guess she’ll be okay if she gets a good night’s sleep,” Sy said, looking worried.

  Florence was now in disbelief over Sy’s end of the conversation. She grabbed the telephone from him. “Look, I know a whole lot more about what’s going on here than you do,” she told Berry. “And it ain’t good.”

  The next day, Berry was on a plane to Boston. As soon as he saw Diana, he knew that reports of her condition had not been exaggerated. He immediately cancelled the rest of the engagement, took her back to Detroit and checked her into the Henry Ford Hospital to treat “exhaustion.”

  A couple of days later, when Florence went to Diana’s hospital room to visit her, Diana was alone. She was wearing a bathrobe, sitting on her bed and looking extremely frail. Florence remembered that Diana was listening to the instrumental track of a song Berry had just brought over for her to learn, an arrangement that when completed would go on to become the hit record “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone.” Florence greeted her and then sat on the bed next to Diana. For a few minutes, the two talked about the symphonic-sounding music, which was, of course, produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland.

  “You know, maybe you should sing some more leads, now and then,” Diana said to Florence as they listened.

  “Oh, yeah?” Florence responded.

  “Yeah. You know what? You should, Flo,” Diana insisted. “I’ll tell Berry.”

  It was odd. Diana had been so territorial about her position in the group. To now offer to relinquish some power to Florence was surprising. It suggests that she really was exhausted, and perhaps eager to have some of the responsibility she’d been carrying for so long now lifted from her.

  “Oh, I can’t,” Florence said, sounding defeated before she even began. “Berry would never let me.”

  “But you can,” Diana urged. Florence would remember that Diana reached over and clasped her hand tightly. “Blondie, you know you can do anything you want to do. Don’t you know that? I mean, haven’t we proved that? Just look at us,” Diana continued. “We are the Supremes, after all. Now aren’t we?” She smiled.

  “I still don’t think so, Diane,” Florence said sadly. “You’re the one who can do anything she wants to do. Not me.” She began to cry.

  The two girls were silent for a minute before Florence turned to Diana and asked her a very direct question. Finally, some truth, some real communication, might occur between them. “Diane, are you going to leave us?” Florence asked. “Are you leaving the Supremes?”

  “I just don’t know, Flo,” Diana answered. She seemed genuinely uncertain. “What do you think? Berry probably thinks I should.”

  “Who cares what Berry thinks?” Florence answered, now getting angry. “Who’s going to take care of you if you leave us? Who’s going to help you when you’re sick?”

  As Florence later recalled it, Diana’s vulnerable eyes filled with tears at the mention of Berry’s name. Soon, they were streaming down her face. “Thanks for helping me, Blondie,” she finally said, not addressing the questions at hand. “Thanks for what you did in Boston.”

  “You don’t have to thank me,” Florence responded, now crying again.

  The two friends sat on the hospital bed, holding hands and crying softly. “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone” played on the tape recorder.

  “No one ever wins”

  Their truce did not last long. If Diana ever spoke to Berry about Florence, it didn’t amount to much because she never sang more leads.

  On 2 September 1966, Berry and the Supremes embarked on a tour of the Far East. Once they got to Tokyo, Mary and Florence began to see what Berry really had in store for them. In the past, the three girls usually arrived together for press conferences. Beginning in Tokyo, though, Berry orchestrated it so that he and Diana walked into the room full of reporters first, followed a little later by Mary and Florence.

  It was while the group was in Tokyo that everyone figured out that Florence had begun dating Berry’s chauffeur, a man named Tommy Chapman. Berry was unhappy about the relationship; after all, he viewed Florence as one of his prized “girls” and Tommy as just a lowly functionary. However, Diana and Mary were happy about it. Diana had Berry, of course, and Mary was dating one of the Four Tops. They wanted Florence to have some romance in her life, especially suspecting how difficult it was for her to forge intimate relationships. When she was with Tommy, she seemed more self-assured and confident. He was also able to take her mind off her obsession with Diana’s growing fame.

  When they got back to the United States after the tour of the Far East, the Supremes were scheduled to perform at a benefit in Boston. However, Florence came down with what was diagnosed as walking pneumonia. It was ironic that she should become ill in the same city where Diana had had so much trouble earlier.

  At this same time, Florence’s drinking became a big problem—and it seemed almost as if it happened overnight. Diana and Mary could handle their liquor, but Florence couldn’t—and, to be candid about it, she drank more than they did. When everyone started seeing her acting tipsy from time to time, they began to have less faith in her. They started to believe that when she said she was sick, she was really just hungover. When she missed a series of rehearsals, she explained that she was very ill. Years later she would say that she had been, again, suffering from a form of pneumonia. “All my joints were inflamed and I went from a size twelve dress to a size seven in about two weeks. I just couldn’t move. If I tried to move my arms it was just so painful, I just couldn’t do it.” Still, at the time everyone suspected this was just Florence being unreliable. Berry was considering sending Diana and Mary out onto the stage alone. As they discussed their options at the Boston venue, Florence showed up.

  “What are you doing here?” Diana snapped at her.

  “I told her to come,” Cholly Atkins, the dance instructor, said. “She’s too sick to sing, though. But she can sit and watch the routines and maybe learn that way,” he suggested.

  “Oh, please. Nobody can learn that way,” Diana argued, standin
g up to the older choreographer. “Look, if she’s too sick then she’s too sick, Cholly. And, anyway, I don’t want to catch whatever it is she thinks she has.” She faced Florence. “Blondie, you turn right around and go back to the hotel. I think you got the rheumatic fever, or something.”

  It was in this same city Florence had cared for Diana just months earlier. The irony must not have escaped her. “Listen, Missy,” she began, standing right up to her. “Nobody tells me where I should be or where I shouldn’t be.” Then, she posed the question on some people’s minds: “You know what? Why are you so mean, anyway? Why are you being such a bitch?”

  Diana was instantly hurt and anyone looking at her would have known it from her expression. But then, just as quickly, she was angry—and that was obvious, too. Before the two women started crossing swords again, though, Cholly realized his mistake in bringing Florence to the rehearsal. He got her out of there quickly. Tommy drove her back to the hotel.

  Ultimately, Berry decided not to send Diana and Mary out as a duo. The group had to cancel their performance altogether; Florence’s throat was too sore to allow her to sing.

  The more Florence drank, the more weight she gained, and the more uncomfortable her tight, formfitting stage wardrobe looked on her. Diana was an almost-emaciated size three, Mary a reasonable size seven. But Florence was a twelve and growing fast. One night Berry—who was with Diana and his sister Gwen—noticed her nursing a Martini at the bar in the 20 Grand. He walked over to her, told her that he and Diana had just discussed the matter and had come to a conclusion. “We think you’re fat, Flo,” he said.

  “Oh, you think so, huh?” she said calmly.

  “Yeah, we do,” Berry said. He sat down next to her as if he thought the two were now going to engage in a reasonable discussion. But, after that opener? Not likely. She picked up her glass and threw the drink in his face. Then, she spun around on uneasy footing and walked away.