Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Diana Ross’s final television appearance with the Supremes on The Ed Sullivan Show was scheduled for 21 December 1969. Wearing gowns of gold lamé and chiffon with dolman sleeves, the girls sang a fast-paced but exciting medley of their hits and then finished with “Someday We’ll Be Together.” Sullivan had certainly been good to the Supremes over the years, but now, as they performed, they seemed emotionally drained and not as enthusiastic as in past Sullivan showings. One could also see bruises that makeup couldn’t fully conceal on the side of Cindy’s face from her ordeal. After their hits medley, Sullivan announced, “Diana Ross will continue her career as a solo star.” However, no mention was made of what Mary or Cindy had in store. There were a few sad glances among the ladies during their last number, but the presentation of it all could not have been more anticlimactic. A weird moment occurred as Diana finished the song and began walking toward the television camera. Because of an odd shooting angle, it seemed that Mary and Cindy had shrunk away behind her—they were about a third of her size on the screen

  A farewell in Las Vegas

  Onstage in the Music Hall of the Frontier Hotel at 11:30 p.m. on 14 January 1970, ventriloquist Willie Tyler scolded his dummy, Lester, as ripples of laughter spread through the room. In the wings, Diana Ross waited and nervously toyed with a cigarette. She took a heavy drag, exhaled and then waved the smoke from her mouth with a theatrical gesture. The glare of the spotlights made it impossible for her to see beyond the stage into the audience, but she must have known there was a full house. She dropped the cigarette to the floor and ground the butt with her high-heeled shoe. Her face was pensive in the semidarkness. Seen up close and without the smile, the heavy stage makeup made her look tired and older than her twenty-five years. The last few years, in particular, had not been easy ones. She sighed and gave a half-hearted wave to band leader Gil Askey when he held up ten fingers to indicate that it was ten minutes till show time.

  It was almost over—and in the same city, ironically enough, in which Florence Ballard had been fired from the group three and a half years earlier. In their dressing room, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong were sharing a bottle of champagne. Before leaving, they took a quick look in the mirror to check their makeup. Long red fingernails fluffed out and then smoothed down elaborate wigs. A glance over the shoulder made sure the back view was right. “Well, this is it,” Cindy said, according to her memory. “I don’t know about you, but I feel sad and happy all at the same time.”

  “Me, too,” Mary said.

  “It must be harder for you,” Cindy remarked. “You’ve been in it from the very beginning.”

  Mary shrugged. “Hey, don’t talk like this is a wake,” she said. “Just because she’s leaving doesn’t mean we’re dying. This is a happy night. The Supremes aren’t dead.” She poured the remaining champagne into their two glasses. “Come on, we can finish this while we wait.”

  As the two ladies left their dressing room, they saw that Diana had been joined by Berry and that the two were engaged in what seemed like a deep conversation. Berry’s back was toward them. Diana’s arms were around his neck. He was holding her waist. Diana glanced up and saw Mary and Cindy but gave no sign of recognition.

  “You’re a star, baby,” Berry said to Diana just as Mary and Cindy walked by them. “This is your night. So, just forget about the girls and do your thing.”

  Cindy looked at Mary. Mary said nothing, but by the way she straightened her shoulders it was obvious that she had heard, and that she was hurt.

  The entire engagement up until this evening had been difficult. A live album called Farewell was being recorded during some of the performances, produced by Deke Richards for Motown in an effort to memorialize the shows. “The nights we were recording were extremely tense,” Cindy Birdsong recalled. “Mary and I knew that this was going to be the end of something, but we didn’t know exactly of what—Diana Ross and the Supremes, or the Supremes, altogether. In those last days, we never saw Diane, but Mary and I knew that she was elated about leaving. It made it rough to perform with her. None of us were happy, yet we had to project happiness to our audiences. It was all acting … the smiles, the tears … all of it.”

  “Tensions were at an all-time high,” Deke Richards confirmed. “Diana definitely wanted to be out on her own. She just wanted to do it all … Whatever it was, she felt she could do it.”

  During one of the nights recorded for posterity, whoever had the job of introducing the group didn’t show up. The house was packed. The three Supremes paced back and forth backstage in their blue and green spangled pantsuits, waiting to go on. “What is the holdup?” Diana asked, impatiently. When the problem was explained to her, she became annoyed. “You gotta be kidding me,” she said. “That’s what we’re waiting for? But the audience is out there. We need to get on stage. Now.”

  Deke Richards had just got into the recording booth, which was in the far reaches of the theater, when he got a phone call from backstage. “You’d better get back here quick,” he was told. “We got a little problem. Diana Ross is getting ready to introduce herself.” Deke was stunned. “What? But …” He ran out of the booth, through the audience and backstage. Just as he got there, he saw Diana holding the offstage mic used by the announcer.

  “Diana, what are you doing?” he asked. “Why, I’m getting ready to introduce us,” she said, as if stating the obvious. She was taking charge, getting it done, just like always. “But, you can’t do that,” Deke said. “Why?” Diana wanted to know, facing him straight on. “Because you can’t. I mean, what are you gonna say?” he asked. Diana shrugged, “I’m gonna say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen … here we are!’ What do you think I’m gonna say, Deke?” She looked at him with challenging eyes. “Well, look, you can’t do it,” he countered. “We’ll find someone else. Whatever you do, Diana, don’t do it.” Still, she stood there, mic in hand—ready to make her announcement. At that moment, Shelly Berger ran into the scene. “Wait! Diane,” he told her. “I know you can do anything, but you can’t do this.” Shelly then took the mic and quickly introduced the group. Chagrined, Diana walked out onto the stage for her performance. Looking back on it now, it’s rather humorous—and certainly one of the few light moments anyone had during this tense engagement.

  But, now it was time for the final show—the end of Diana Ross and the Supremes. Backstage before they went on, there was no moment when Diana and Mary acknowledged that this was the last time they would perform together. No hugs, no demonstration of even artificial affection. Coincidentally, the following day—15 January—would mark exactly nine years since the girls signed their first contract with Berry and began their recording careers. No mention of that bit of irony, either. Indeed, it was a little late to start acting nostalgic.

  As the houselights dimmed, three spots flashed on a trio of microphone stands, each glistening in its place. The audience hushed itself. After Shelley’s introduction, an overture and a dramatic drum-roll, there she was: Diana entered from stage right, out of darkness, into light and thunderous applause. Flashing her megawatt smile, she walked before her audience and took her place. Mary and Cindy then entered, stage left, to their own reception. Finally, they were together again and, as always, appeared to be the best of friends just ready to once again get to work. They began the evening with the song “T.C.B.,” which had been written for their first television special with the Temptations. That number then immediately segued into “Stop! In the Name of Love.” The audience cheered as the Supremes outstretched their three arms like traffic cops. However, no cops ever looked like this: pearls with gold braid punctuated the low-cut Vs of black velvet dresses; trumpet-shaped skirts flared out at the knees to liquefy every step; sleeves bedazzled in gold paisley sequins. It was a glamorous presentation, perfect for Las Vegas, and the audience loved it.

  Bathed in three soft beams of pink light, the three Supremes—Diana and Mary just twenty-five, Cindy, thirty—then performed a medley of their best-selling songs, including
“Come See About Me,” “My World Is Empty Without You” and “Baby Love.” The songs, charged with memories for diehard fans in the house, elicited applause by the first bars of each. By the time the group finished with a medley merging “The Lady Is a Tramp,” from their Rodgers and Hart album of 1967 with Sammy Cahn’s “The Second Best Secret Agent in the World,” and Tommy Dorsey’s “Let’s Get Away from it All,” the audience of over a thousand people—celebrities, special invited guests of Motown, friends and family—was completely involved in the show. “This is the last show for Diana Ross and the Supremes,” Diana told them, “and we want you to know that we’re gonna swing right on out …”

  It was time for the first of two special, solo numbers sung by Mary Wilson. After Mary took Diana’s mike, Diana slipped into a place she rarely occupied—next to Cindy in the background. Mary then bit into Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take my Eyes off of You” as though it was her last meal. Her voice and performance was better than ever, and some observers wondered if Diana’s departure might afford her the opportunity to finally sing more leads. “You’re awful nice,” Diana told her, joking as the crowd applauded Mary’s performance. “Now get back to your microphone.” Everyone laughed. Later, Mary would sing “Falling in Love with Love,” again from the Rodgers and Hart sessions—and, again, in peak form.

  By half past midnight the show was strictly high-voltage. Diana’s version of the Billie Holiday classic “My Man” put on the brakes, giving some in the audience a chance to exchange knowing looks as she sang to Berry. She walked off the stage and down the center aisle, where she delivered the number with passion and longing to him at his table. “For whatever my man is, I am his,” she sang to him unashamedly.

  As the show proceeded, cigarette smoke drifted in front of the spots and gave them a hazy, blue look. Diana soon glided off the stage and into the audience for a rousing version of “Let the Sunshine In” from Hair, for which she would be joined by celebrities from the audience. Smokey Robinson sang. Claudette, too—yes, they were still married. Marvin Gaye. Steve Allen. Dick Clark. Even the cast of Hair lifted their voices for a chorus of the popular song from that play. The whole room was madly involved, with people jumping up and starting to sing without even being asked. Diana wound her way back to the stage, all the while moving and singing.

  “One more time,” she shouted.

  And they kept on singing and stomping; the theater reverberated with the fervor of an old-fashioned gospel meeting. It was a magic fusion of star and audience, with Diana in total command. The audience loved her accessibility as she walked out into the room and shook hands with them, making contact with as many as possible. This was a scene that would be played out over and over again with the passing of the years with songs from her future solo career such as “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand).” For that particular number, she would command the crowd to hold hands and sway to its chorus, all the while putting the mic in front of the faces of select audience members and asking them to sing. Her use of that number and the brilliant way she would relate it to her audiences would become one of the more memorable hallmarks of her career. But it was during the shows at the Frontier Hotel with the Supremes that she would first show this side of herself and, thus, it was with this final performance that something else became clear.

  Maybe it was noticeable only to those closest to her but true just the same: in her adult life, Diana was beginning to mirror aspects of both of her parents. Diana Ross, entertainer, was Ernestine, mother. She was giving, open and available. She had no emotional limitations. She would do anything for her audience … her children. She was all about love. But, offstage, Diana Ross the woman was definitely informed by Fred, her father. She could be cautious and guarded, inaccessible. Like Fred, she would never be easy to understand. Indeed, like Fred, she would often be unfathomable. True, she would never be as emotionally removed from her own children as Fred had been from his—in the raising of her family, she would be much more like Ernestine—but with others in her world, she would often be just like … her father. In analyzing families, they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Never, it would seem, would that old adage be more appropriate than in its application to Diana Ross.

  “In the coming year, Mary and Cindy and I won’t be together, but we’ll always be together in our hearts,” Diana said in the middle of the group’s final number, “Someday We’ll Be Together.” When she finally brought Berry up to the stage, the audience gave him a thunderous, standing ovation. He embraced Diana and kissed her. He looked incredibly proud of her. Cindy approached him; he took her by the waist and kissed her gently on the cheek. Then, he went over to Mary and hugged her. Tears were streaming down Mary’s face as she and Berry held one another. When he went to kiss her on the cheek, she turned abruptly and startled him by kissing him squarely on the lips.

  Jean Terrell, the woman selected to replace Diana in the group, was then brought up onto the stage. “I think she should be here right now,” Diana said. Jean was dressed in black crêpe with gold brocade sleeves. With the four women posing together, never losing their smiles and holding bouquets of roses, the photographers at the edge of the stage could not contain their enthusiasm. The audience craned their necks to catch one final glimpse of Diana Ross and the Supremes as the curtain dropped … and then the glow vanished for good.

  Part Four

  SOLO STAR

  Las Vegas solo turn

  March 1970. The time had come for Diana Ross to make her solo debut. They certainly didn’t waste much time at Motown getting things done, did they? In just a couple of months, Berry Gordy and company had already put together a stage show for Diana with new arrangements, new costumes and new background singers and dancers. Of course, Diana was at the center of it all, the pressure on her as always to perform and excel. Then, in her “spare time,” Berry had her in the studio with a variety of producers and arrangers, recording enough material for at least four new albums. Of course, out of about fifty songs, she would be fortunate to see even half of them released to the public. One of the tunes she recorded was Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End.” When Diana’s version wasn’t issued, producer Richard Perry cut the same song with Barbra Streisand and it became a Top 10 hit. Produced with a Motown beat and soaring female backup vocals, this record would introduce Streisand to a whole new generation of young record buyers. It was interesting that Berry was determined to have Diana appeal to Barbra’s older, more theater-savvy crowd at the same time that Barbra was trying to crack the very market Diana practically owned! The theatrics were in full swing in Diana’s first solo nightclub act, which began a trial run at Monticello’s in Framingham, Massachusetts; an eleven-day engagement commencing on 8 March.

  As expected, there were numerous costume changes in the new show—eight in all, from sequined sarongs to bugle-beaded miniskirts. Besides a band, she was also supported by three female background singers and two male dancers. The opening medley was clearly designed to show the audience and critics that Diana could sing and dance to any style of music. Starting with Streisand’s “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” she segued into the R&B classic “The Nitty Gritty,” then to the Supremes’ “Reflections,” a quick costume change and, finally, “Rhythm of Life” from Broadway’s Sweet Charity. As the percussion changed to the pace of an African rhythm, she explained to the audience, “This is the rhythm of my life, and the sound of my life.” She then launched into a rousing dance routine. When the exhausting twelve-minute medley finally ended, a breathless Diana took the microphone and said, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Let’s-See-If-Diana-Ross-Can-Do-It-By-Herself-Show.” As if the opening number left any room for doubt.

  “Still, people were coming to see her with a negative attitude,” her opening act, ventriloquist Willie Tyler, remembered.

  It was as if she had gotten a bad reputation just by leaving the Supremes behind. Also, I think she was trying too hard. Now, she had to prove herself, prove that
her ability warranted a solo career, and so she was singing, dancing, changing clothes, doing everything she could think of to razzle-dazzle. I recall her being very disappointed by the reception. Berry told her to take her time and wait it out. Soon, he said, the audiences will come to her side.

  Although it was a strong act with some Supremes hits, special songs like Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” and her first single as a solo artist, “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand),” Diana transmitted a surprising amount of uncertainty and not a lot of dynamism throughout it. Indeed, it would take her just a little more time to find her rhythm as a solo act.