Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  According to Mary, Florence recalled that the man parked the car in a dark, deserted street. Then he pulled out a knife. There, he raped her, robbing her of her virginity. When Florence finally got herself home, she told her family what had happened. Of course, everyone was horrified and very upset about it. Her older brother Cornell then insisted that she stop singing and going to nightclubs. So, for the next couple of months, Florence stayed home, afraid to even go to school lest someone there might know about the assault.

  Mary says that her friend was ashamed, traumatized and plagued by nightmares, pretty much what one would expect when something so terrible happens to someone so young. It wasn’t as if the Ballard family had a therapist on hand to help their beloved daughter cope with being raped. They were on their own, like everyone else in the projects who had to deal with personal trauma. They did the best they could with what was available to them—and that was usually just a warm embrace and a few comforting words. Mary says that it was Lurlee who finally encouraged Florence to leave the house and try to pick up her life where she had left it. If she could bring herself to sing again, Lurlee believed her daughter might be all right.

  Mary says that she and Diana were too stunned to even know how to react to Florence’s news. “I knew what people mean when they said fear has a smell,” Mary would later remember. “Flo’s fear was almost tangible. I could see her suffering, and her eyes reflected a gamut of emotions—fright, embarrassment, distrust. I was shocked to realize some of those feelings were directed at Diane and me.”

  From Mary’s account, after Florence told her story to her singing partners the subject was never again raised, even between the three of them when they became famous women. In fact, Mary says that she and Diana “never discussed it again, not even between ourselves. I chalk it up to our youth,” she adds.

  There is some ambiguity about what happened to Florence at this time in the memoirs of the three Supremes—the published accounts by Diana and Mary, and a comprehensive unpublished one about Florence written by Motown scholar Peter Benjaminson.

  In her 1986 book Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme Mary goes into great detail about the assault and examines its consequences on Florence’s psyche. “All women who are raped suffer, some in different ways than others,” she wrote.

  In Flo’s case, the betrayal of trust was the greatest shock. From this day on, I’d see Flo’s basic personality undergo a metamorphosis, from being reticent and shy with a sassy front to being skeptical, cynical and afraid of everyone and everything. My heart was wrenched at the thought of Flo’s suffering. My anger over the fact that someone could do this to my friend faded into quiet fear when I realized that it could have happened to any of us, including me.

  However, in her 1993 book Secrets of a Sparrow Diana doesn’t mention the rape at all. In fact, she writes as if it never happened, and that she doesn’t have a clue as to why Florence was so mercurial in nature. “She was terribly moody, constantly up and down,” she wrote of Ballard. “We never really understood her moods … maybe she didn’t know, herself. With Florence, there seemed always to be a problem; nothing was ever right no matter how hard we tried to please her. It was difficult.” Then she concluded, “Florence’s life was always shrouded in mystery for me.” Some readers felt that Diana was being unsympathetic to Florence’s situation. She was—said her critics—not at all interested in what happened to Florence, or what she could have done about it.

  Florence also told Mary and Diana about going to the police station to identify her attacker—this, according to Mary. Later, Mary says, Florence testified against her assailant in court, seeing to it that he was convicted and sent to prison.

  Surely, Diana had to remember some of those events, yet she didn’t mention any of them in her memoir. Perhaps she was being discreet and wanted to respect Florence’s privacy. Or maybe she just felt that since Florence hadn’t come forth with the information herself, she wasn’t going to either.

  In 1975, the respected reporter Peter Benjaminson—working for The Free Press at the time—spent three days with Florence writing an in-depth proposal for a possible book about her life. She was very revealing during his time with her; the 111-page proposal is a stream of consciousness in the first person in which she examines her life and times in great detail. In her own words—almost, now, as if speaking from the great beyond—she has a totally different version of why she left the Supremes during the time in question.* She says that her older brother Cornell—who was a police officer—had taken over as head of the family after her father passed away. The reason she left the Supremes, she says, was that her brother forced her to quit so that she could focus on her education. She says that she was sixteen at the time he forced her out of the act, which was when Mary recalls the rape as having occurred. Florence also said that when she was seventeen, her mother told her that she would be allowed to rejoin the Supremes as a birthday gift to her. And that’s when she telephoned Diana and Mary.

  One wonders why Florence would not have told Peter Benjaminson about the attack. She certainly seemed to tell him just about everything else; would she have left out this pivotal, life-changing event? Of course, it’s possible. She might have decided not to reveal the assault, choosing instead to keep it to herself and come up with another story as to why she left the group. Maybe she was embarrassed. Perhaps she even blocked it from her memory, as victims of such violent crimes often do. She certainly does hint at being depressed. “I had some pretty blue days. I used to sit and cry to myself … although, I can’t remember why.”

  When it comes to a person’s personal history—especially when that person is deceased—it’s always difficult to draw absolute conclusions. All one can do is rely on the accounts of those who bore witness to certain events. The Ballard family refuses to speak of Florence’s past, so we have no assistance from that quarter. If Florence hadn’t written an unpublished memoir, we would only have Mary’s memory to contrast to Diana’s. But Florence’s memoir adds another layer of mystery to this strange story. Truly, in the end, we really can’t say what happened to her. We can only say that Mary’s frank recollection of events was that Florence was raped; Diana didn’t mention it at all—and neither did Florence.

  Diana and Smokey

  March 1961, the month Diana Ross turned seventeen, saw the release of “I Want a Guy,” the Supremes’ first recording for Motown’s subsidiary, Tamla. Diana sang lead on the song, and not the best vocal performance from her, either. By this time Florence and Barbara were back in the act and the group was, once again, a quartet. They were earning forty dollars a week to split four ways, and Berry actually had someone on his staff who kept track of the payroll. “Every Thursday, Diane would come down to the office and collect the money for herself and the other girls,” recalled Taylor Cox, the man who headed up Motown’s so-called Multi-Media Management division. “I recall having some problems with her over this forty dollars because she would always come early to pick it up, and it wouldn’t be ready. She wanted her money, though, and would raise hell if the check wasn’t there for her.”

  “I Want a Guy” was not a commercial success, but its failure in the marketplace didn’t discourage the group. They were just happy to be recording for Gordy’s label and confident that the next song would be a hit. Unfortunately, another one, “Buttered Popcorn,” didn’t click with the disc jockeys or public either, even with Florence replacing Diana on lead vocals. “When am I going to get my first hit?” Diana asked Smokey Robinson one day as the two met in front of the Hitsville building. “Soon, Diane,” he told her. “It takes time.” She smiled and winked at him. Did she have a plan? In retrospect, it’s possible that she did have an idea, and that it concerned Smokey.

  There were quite a few attractive young black men trying to make it at Motown at this time, and Smokey Robinson was on top of everyone’s list. Thin and angular yet athletic, he was a light-skinned black man with wavy dark hair that he wore in the slicked fashion of the day.
His eyes were a striking, luminous green. The first time Diana saw him, years earlier when they were neighbors, she was practically mesmerized. “I have never seen a Negro with green eyes,” she told friends. “God, is he adorable.” As well as being “adorable,” Smokey was also a romantic, which came as no surprise considering the sentimental lyrics he was known to write for his songs. More importantly, though, he was a man with considerable clout at Motown because he was one of Berry’s closest friends. It didn’t take long for the artists at the label to figure out that if they wanted Berry’s ear and couldn’t get it, Smokey was the man to know. A very popular guy, he was amenable, anxious to help his label mates in any way he could and a pleasure to be around at that time.

  Smokey and Diana still laugh about the fact that when he heard the Primettes for the first time—which happened to be at Claudette’s house—he was impressed enough with their guitar player to steal him away for a gig in Cleveland. That was Marv Tarplin, an excellent musician who then would spend many decades cowriting songs with Smokey, such as “The Tracks of my Tears.” As a trade-off for purloining their guitarist, Smokey agreed to take the girls to Motown—and that’s how they ended up auditioning for Berry. He also gave Diana the money for cosmetology school when she decided that she wanted to attend, but couldn’t afford the tuition. The flip side of Smokey was that he was a little bit too much the ladies’ man, even though he was married to his childhood sweetheart, Claudette.

  “Smokey was vulnerable to any overtures,” said one of the Vandellas, the group that sang behind Martha Reeves. “There were a lot of cute girls always hanging around him. The word was out that he was the best lover at Hitsville, with the best … equipment.” This singer remembers clusters of young girls whispering and giggling about Smokey, and then clamming up when they saw him or Berry walking in their direction.

  Diana was seventeen by this time. From being around him at Hitsville so often, her little childhood crush on the twenty-one-year-old Robinson had developed into something more. She was unable to suppress her warm feelings for him. When she told the other girls about it, they weren’t encouraging. Florence had said that she too was interested in knowing Robinson better but that she had decided to back off “out of respect for Claudette.” Actually, the girls were a bit mystified by Claudette, anyway. They wondered why a woman would tolerate a husband who was unfaithful to her. However, Claudette’s loyalty to Smokey was well known by all. “Oh, I’m sure she has her reasons,” Mary said, diplomatically. Mary was always the one to try to figure out a person’s motivation. She was the sage of the group, the one to give everyone else the benefit of the doubt, whereas the others were quicker to jump to adolescent conclusions.

  One afternoon, according to what Mary Wilson has recalled, Diana made an announcement to the group. “You three will never guess who I went out with last night,” she declared. “Smokey.”

  “Oh no, you didn’t,” Mary said.

  “Oh yes, I did,” Diana countered.

  “Oh no, you didn’t,” Florence said even more firmly. “You’re doing this just to make me feel bad. You know I like Smokey. And, anyway, you’re going to get us all kicked out of Hitsville.” To Diana, Florence’s scenario probably seemed unlikely. If anything, she must have felt that any assignation with Robinson would help, not hinder, the Supremes at Hitsville. Florence scrutinized Diana intently, waiting for some kind of reaction. Diana didn’t have much to offer though, other than a mischievous smile.

  Over the next couple of weeks, Smokey and Diana continued spending time together and, according to one of Smokey’s singing partners, enjoying late nights in the apartment of one of the other unmarried Miracles. Diana was blossoming into a truly lovely young woman, but it was really her self-confidence that Smokey—as he would later tell it—found so appealing. There was something inherently sensual about her focus and determination, especially to someone who was equally serious about his own career. Also, he thought she was immensely talented and that what she had to offer had yet to be fully realized. It was exciting to watch her grow, to be at the commencement of something that promised to be so great.

  Whenever anyone saw Diana during this time she was positively glowing. It wasn’t long before her interest in Smokey became the talk of the company. “Soon, whenever the Miracles were performing around town, Diana was backstage with Smokey,” said Gladys Horton, one of the Marvelettes. “She would throw her arms around him, jump in his lap, snuggle up next to him, hold his hand. She didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought about it. Obviously, Claudette didn’t like it.”

  Smokey tried to be discreet with whatever it was that was going on with Diana, but that wasn’t always easy. He insisted, though, that anyone who believed it to be sexual between them was absolutely wrong. However, at times their gaze was so intimate in public places, others would turn away. Eventually Claudette sat him down and made it clear that she wanted the flirtation, or whatever it was, to end. Smokey insisted that it was “all innocent,” that Diana was just a playful teenager and an old friend. He’d even helped her with her driving test and was with her when she got her license. So, in a sense, he was mentoring her. This was hard to believe. Claudette may have been loyal, but she wasn’t stupid. She may not have known exactly what to make of Diana Ross but she certainly knew her own husband. “Would it make you feel better if I didn’t see Diane so much?” Smokey asked her. She said yes, that would be helpful.

  Who knows what was really going on between Diana and Smokey? It could very well have been completely innocent. Though Diana hasn’t discussed it at all publicly, Smokey made reference to the relationship in his memoir Inside My Life as “an intimacy, a genuine love.” Only the two of them know for certain what that means. Why this relationship is significant, though, is that it marked the first time certain of her colleagues at the company began talking about Diana Ross behind her back, and in a critical and judgmental way. As far as some of her peers at Motown were concerned, the seeds of mistrust had been planted with the Smokey Robinson imbroglio.

  Cass Technical High School

  In June 1962, Diana Ross graduated from Cass Technical High School in Detroit. She had decided to go to Cass Technical instead of Northeastern High because her father had previously attended Cass, as did her sister Barbara Jean—who had enrolled a year before Diana. Northeastern was the school attended by the majority of youngsters from the Brewster Projects, but Cass drew students from all segments of the diversified Detroit population. Its instructors encouraged the pupils to ignore race and economic status. Students at Cass were expected to adhere to higher academic standards than those of any other school in Detroit. A B average was required for admittance and a C average had to be maintained in order to continue attending. Mary Wilson once said that she had the opportunity to go to Cass but turned it down “because I didn’t want to have to do all of the extra homework I knew I’d get there.” In a sense, though, Diana’s education at Cass further separated her from Mary, Florence and Betty—all of whom attended Northeastern. Unfortunately, her enrollment in this special school also served to single her out in the projects as someone her neighbors felt was an elitist. Ironically, some of Diana’s classmates at Cass felt the same way.

  Doris Jackson, who was a former classmate, recalled, “No one wanted to be her friend because we all thought she was stuck up, but couldn’t figure out why she was like that. The school was loaded with snobs who had good reason to be snobs, or at least they thought they did because of their economic status. But Diana was a ‘nobody’ acting like a ‘somebody.’ We laughed at her, looked down our noses at her. She was elite-acting, not very social.” Black culture historian Nelson George once reported that someone who knew Diana during this time said of her, “I have to tell you one thing about Diana Ross—I say it in her defense all the time—when she was poor, living in the projects, she was just as snotty as she is now, so her fame didn’t make her snotty.”

  Mary Wilson says that Diana often complained that there were
people at school who snubbed her. Though Mary could understand why that was probably the case, knowing Diana, she was sympathetic about it. However, she knew that Diana was one to keep her eye on the goal. Although she wanted to be accepted by her peers like anyone else, she was also eager to just get through school so that she could concentrate on a career in some area of show business. For the most part she became a loner at Cass, one of the serious students with a fair work ethic even if she wasn’t a great student, since she mostly just maintained the bare minimum C grade. She kept to herself and stayed out of trouble. “She didn’t mix that much with the other youngsters,” says Aimee Kron, a teacher to whom Diana got particularly close. “I hardly ever saw her in a large group of girls. She didn’t seem to want to spend her time chattering, gossiping and giggling. She wasn’t frivolous in that way. She was so serious, but also lonely, I think.”

  Since she shared Ernestine’s ability to sew and had a flair for style, Diana became fascinated by the school’s clothing and design courses. She knew what suited her and had been interested in fashion ever since she was a small child. Her brother T-Boy recalled her designing an entire wardrobe of doll’s clothes for an orphaned child who lived in the neighborhood. “All dolls ought to have pretty clothes,” she said when the doll’s owner told her that hers didn’t have any clothes at all.

  She was also interested in modeling, and she definitely had the lean and graceful form for it. “After singing, modeling was becoming my love because I just thought it was the most beautiful business,” she once remembered.