Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Ironically enough, considering all that was going on with her, Florence did have a solo in the act at this time, Streisand’s “People.” It had actually been in the show on and off for years. The girls harmonized through most of it; Florence sang the majority of the lead lines; Diana had a solo in the middle and sometimes Mary even sang a portion. But, one night just before showtime, Florence complained to Gil Askey backstage that she might not be able to do the song. “See, it’s just that my voice is so tired and hoarse,” she explained. “But that’s not good enough,” Gil told her. “You gotta be ready to sing, Blondie. Everyone else has to sing when they don’t feel like it.” Florence became annoyed. “Well, I’m not everybody else, now am I?” she asked, hands on hips. Diana overheard the exchange. “Okay, fine,” she decided. “Then I suggest we sing the ‘Symphony’ medley in place of ‘People.’” Gil thought it over. “Okay, sure, that’ll work.” Florence gave Diana a sharp look. Diana returned it.

  Years later Gil would chuckle at the memory: “We had just replaced Florence’s one song, ‘People,’ with five songs from the I Hear a Symphony album, all of which Diana sang lead on. But, hey, that was on Florence. She opened herself up for that one, didn’t she? To my memory,” he concluded, “we never put ‘People’ back into the show after that …”

  A few weeks later, before an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Mary recalls having had a private talk with Florence. She told her to “wise up. Don’t you know that every time Berry and Diane come at you they’re trying to antagonize you so that you’ll say something and they can fire you?” Mary asked her.

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?” Florence remarked.

  “Just do what I do,” Mary said. “Nothing. Don’t say anything back to them, at all. Don’t you get it?” Mary asked her, frustrated.

  “What?”

  “Look. Have some sense, Flo,” she began. “Diane’s gonna leave the group, eventually. And when she does, you will be the lead singer. Once Berry’s got Diane all to himself, he’s not gonna care what the hell we do.”

  Florence stopped to digest that information.

  Mary continued, “So, if you can just put up with this crap a little longer, I’m telling you that we will be fine. We’ll get another girl to sing background and you will be the one in front.”

  From the look on Florence’s face, Mary could see that she’d gotten through to her. However, the calm only lasted a few seconds before Florence couldn’t control herself. “Oh, screw that!” she countered. “I’m not kissing Diane’s ass, or Berry’s either. I’m fighting both of them. What’s right is right, Mary,” Florence concluded. “And I’ll win, too. You’ll see. They can both go to hell.”

  “You won’t win, Flo,” Mary said, shaking her head sadly. “No one ever wins fighting those two,” she finally concluded.

  “Call her Miss Ross”

  Florence Ballard’s discontent was obviously a problem for the Supremes, and she seemed close to either getting fired or quitting. Meanwhile, the group continued with a relentless schedule of recording dates, concerts and TV appearances. In retrospect, it’s a wonder they had time to even give a moment’s thought to anything, that’s how constantly busy they were during this point in their lives. At the time, they were on top of the charts with another number-one record, “You Can’t Hurry Love,” which sold more than a million copies. The Supremes à Go-Go, which became the girls’ first number-one album, replaced the Beatles’ Revolver on the charts. A great record, “You Keep Me Hanging On,” was ready for the next release. An album titled The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland had been compiled, conceived as a tribute to the songwriting and producing team who had written and produced all of the group’s major records. The group’s next engagement was at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, where they opened on 29 September 1966.

  The Vegas booking was another important engagement for the girls, one of those top showplaces to which they had worked so hard to get. Berry enjoyed Las Vegas, mostly because he liked to gamble while there, as did Diana. However, the afternoon they arrived in Vegas, Berry suffered some heavy losses at the tables. Since Diana was trying to keep up with him and her luck hadn’t held up either, she found herself losing as well. Before long, they were both $25,000 in the hole. That was twice the amount they were being paid for the whole week! Afterwards, in Berry’s suite, the atmosphere was morose. No one liked to see the king and queen lose; it was bad for company morale. There was a knock at the door; Diana answered and it was Don Foster, one of the group’s road managers. He had a briefcase under his arm. Berry, who acted as if he didn’t know what the contents were, suggested to Diana that she open it. She did. “Money!” she squealed as everyone gathered around her. “Just look at all of this money!” Berry grinned broadly. Apparently he hadn’t felt very lucky that morning when he awakened, and so he called back to Detroit to arrange for $100,000 in cash to be delivered to his suite in big notes. It arrived at the best possible moment. “Let’s go back and gamble!” Diana suggested to Berry, which is precisely what they did.

  The morning after opening night, Diana had to have some dental work done in Los Angeles. She had a missing tooth on the right side of her mouth that was visible during television appearances and Berry wanted it replaced. Berry arranged for her and road manager Joe Schaffner to take a commercial flight from Las Vegas to Burbank, California; then a helicopter from Burbank to Beverly Hills (a five-minute trip), and a limousine from the Beverly Hills helipad to the dentist’s office (another five minutes)—a very complex way of going to the dentist, but he wanted to make it as easy for her as possible because he knew how much she hated going. She had the work done. It was very painful. Then, the return trip: limousine and helicopter to Burbank. Once at the Western Airlines ticket counter in Burbank, Diana was still in pain and in a bad mood as a result.

  “Miss Ross, I’m sorry but you cannot bring that dog onto the flight,” the agent told her.

  “What dog? Why, this is a hatbox with a hat in it,” Diana protested.

  “Well, then, I just heard your hat bark,” said the agent. Indeed, Diana had a Maltese in her hatbox and she was trying to smuggle it aboard the flight.

  “How dare you?” Diana asked in a threatening tone. “What are you saying? Are you saying I’m lying? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Joe Schaffner intervened and tried to explain that they had, indeed, got the dog to Burbank in the hatbox and now just wanted to repeat the offense and get it back to Las Vegas. “Please!” he begged. When the ticket agent refused, Diana lost her temper.

  “You know what? I’ve had it with you,” she fumed. “You are being very rude. I had dental work today and I have to be on stage tonight performing for thousands of people on a Las Vegas stage, and the last thing I need is you being rude to me.”

  “Before I knew what was happening,” recalled Joe Schaffner, laughing, “Diane took the hatbox and started hitting the agent all upside the head with it—and the damn dog was still in the box!”

  Joe apologized and slipped the agent some money for her trouble and the favor of letting Diana’s “hat” onto the plane. But then he told Berry what happened when they got back to Las Vegas. Berry was very unhappy about the encounter and gave Diana a long lecture about how to handle herself in public. “Thanks a lot for nothing, Joe Schaffner,” she told Joe later.

  That night, Diana was, again, at the tables. Joe Schaffner recalled, “Diane was ahead maybe $20,000 at the tables, but she never quit when she was ahead. She was playing five blackjack hands at $500 a hand, and she got busted on each hand and lost. ‘Oh no, not all my money!’ I heard her shriek. After that happened to her, I had the unenviable task of having to tell her it was time for her to get ready to perform. I walked up to her, tapped her on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s time to get ready for the show, Diane.’”

  Apparently, Diana had had enough of Joe Schaffner for one day. She whipped around and threw a drink in his face. Then she stared at him defiantly, waiting for h
is reaction. “I just got a cocktail napkin and wiped it off my face,” Joe remembered, “and then I calmly said, ‘Well, that don’t change the fact that it’s time to get ready for the show, Diane.’”

  The next morning, a newspaper reporter from the Las Vegas News Bureau was scheduled to interview the Supremes in Diana’s suite at the Flamingo. Berry was present with the three girls at the appointed hour, and so were musical conductor Gil Askey and Sy MacArthur. The reporter first asked Mary and Florence questions; both gave charming answers. He then turned to the lead singer and asked, “So, what do you think, Diana?”

  She was about to answer when Berry suddenly injected, “Miss Ross.”

  Diana, thinking she was being addressed, gave Berry a quizzical glance. However, Berry wasn’t talking to her. “Miss Ross,” he told the reporter, his voice firm but manner polite. “Call her Miss Ross.”

  Florence shot Mary a look.

  After an uncomfortable moment, the reporter carefully rephrased his query: “Okay, so what do you think—Miss Ross?”

  Berry smiled. He may have been remembering the heady mixture of respect and power when, a year earlier, he made the transition from being “Berry”—everybody’s buddy—to “Mr. Gordy”—everybody’s boss. Back then, he had been discussing business with an influential concert promoter backstage at the Apollo Theater when one of his artists slapped him on the back, called him “Berry, baby” and asked him for twenty bucks. Berry felt humiliated by such a blatant display of disrespect. Even before that incident, he had complained to his sister Esther about not being given “proper respect” from associates who had known him before he became wealthy and successful. After that incident at the Apollo, word was handed down that he was to be called Mr. Gordy, in front of strangers—not in private, of course—and that if any artist was in need of money he or she should go through proper accounting channels. No one argued with him about it. It made sense.

  Now that Diana Ross was acclaimed as being the star of the Supremes, Berry felt that she deserved similar respect. It would be good for her ego. It would also keep her happy. When she was happy she worked harder, was less argumentative and caused less of a problem for Berry and everyone else. Besides that, in his view it was only fair to her. She had worked hard. She deserved it. However, this was really pushing it where the other two girls were concerned, and he must have known it. He could have enrolled them in the new program easily by also suggesting that they be called Miss Wilson and Miss Ballard, but he didn’t do it. Perhaps he reasoned that if he did, the gesture would then diminish Diana’s distinction.

  “Miss Ross, my ass!” Florence huffed after the interview was over. She and Mary were going back to their rooms and grousing over the new dictate. “I’ll be damned if I’ll call her Miss Ross. In fact, I think Miss Ross is gonna have such a big head now, we’re not gonna be able to stand her.”

  “I agree, Flo,” Mary said, sadly.

  Florence stopped in her tracks. She adopted a haughty expression and fixed Mary with it. “Listen, you. From now on you call me Miss Flo,” she scolded, mocking Berry’s dictate.

  “Fine,” Mary said. “And you should call me Miss Mary. And don’t you ever forget it. Honey.”

  The two girls became hysterical with laughter. It was probably the only thing they could do to keep from crying.

  The die is cast

  A quick check of the Supremes’ discography reveals that there were sixteen commercial releases by the group between 1965 and 1966—nine singles and seven albums. After “Stop! In the Name of Love” all of the Supremes’ singles were memorable hits: “Back in My Arms Again,” “Nothing But Heartaches,” “I Hear a Symphony,” “My World Is Empty Without You,” “Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart,” “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “You Keep Me Hanging On.” All but three of these would become number-one records. A holiday-themed single, “Children’s Christmas Song,” was issued as well.

  For their fans, much of the Supremes’ music of this time was one of the most positive aspects of the 1960s experience. Unlike the folk and rock of the era, which reminded us of war, pollution and social injustice as it painted vivid pictures of the sorrows, failures and atrocities of our time, the Supremes sang of more universal themes: love, disappointment and the vibrancy of youth. Even today, it’s difficult not to feel young again whenever “I Hear a Symphony” is heard on the radio; and how can anyone resist the heavy bass introduction of “You Can’t Hurry Love”? Today, music by the Supremes is constantly utilized for atmospheric purposes in television programs and motion pictures. We return to this music over and over to recapture the age—but even more importantly, the music, in its exuberant simplicity, still holds up.

  “We were trying to keep up not only with what was going on at the Motown studio, but in the world, meaning the Beatles, the Beach Boys,” Lamont Dozier says. “We were trying to make quality songs, quality music and stay if not ahead at least neck and neck with John [Lennon] and Paul [McCartney] and Brian Wilson [of the Beach Boys]. There was definitely a standard, that everything that came out had a signature, as well as it had to sound like a hit.”

  At the end of the year and then into 1967, the Supremes recorded two special albums that remain fan favorites today. The first was a collection of Rodgers and Hart standards. After guest-starring on an ABC network television special that paid tribute to the legendary composers—with Bob Mackie doing their four costume changes and Quincy Jones directing their music—the group went into the Detroit studios to record the new album. It was produced by Gil Askey. These sessions were to yield some of their finest, most revealing work. On songs such as “With a Song in My Heart,” “Mountain Greenery,” “Thou Swell” and “The Lady Is a Tramp,” Diana proved herself to be a vocalist much more stylistically mature than Berry had even imagined. Mary and Florence also came into their own with this collection, and Mary even shared the lead with Diana on one song, “Falling in Love with Love.” She took the part Bobby Darin had sung on the TV special when he performed it with the girls, and she totally committed herself to it. The vocal interplay between Diana and Mary sounds marvelous, even today. Gil says that the idea for Mary to take the lead had been Diana’s. “We were in the studio getting ready to cut the song when Diane just said, ‘Mary should sing Bobby Darin’s part,’” Gil recalled. “So we all kinda looked at one another a little surprised and said, ‘Well, yeah, sure. Why not?’”

  “When we finished the entire album, I remember sitting with Berry and playing it for him and he was completely knocked out by it,” said Gil Askey.

  “Do you realize how great this is?” Berry asked Gil as the music swelled in the background. He couldn’t have been more excited. “This proves what I have been saying all along, these girls are amazing. Listen to this! This is absolutely amazing!”

  “I know,” Gil said, proud of himself for having arranged the huge orchestration around the voices, as well as the vocals. “This takes them to a whole new level, doesn’t it?”

  “This takes them to the moon,” Berry said, laughing.

  Askey later recalled, “He kept calling everyone into his office, saying, ‘Listen to this. Listen to this.’ Some of the Motown acts came in to hear and their attitude was, ‘Great. Another Diana Ross victory. Just what we need around here.’ Really, though, that was a group effort. They all sounded great on that one.”

  It seemed that the Supremes had never been more cohesive as a singing group, which was ironic considering the turmoil behind the scenes. They also recorded an album of songs associated with Walt Disney films. The album, The Supremes Sing and Perform Disney Classics, would be completed but never released.

  Meanwhile, the group’s latest single, “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone,” was number one on the charts in the U.S.; the girls had recently performed it on Andy Williams’ popular NBC series. At the end of January 1967, the Supremes were scheduled for an engagement at the Elmwood Casino in Ontario, Canada, and then it was off to a few more dates in the area befor
e returning home to the Roostertail nightclub in Detroit. While in Detroit, the group recorded “The Happening,” on 8 March 1967, which was produced by H-D-H. (When released in April, it would be another number-one hit, supplanting Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s hit, “Something Stupid.”) However, Florence was unhappy when she heard an early playback of the song and discovered that the Andantes had been added to it. According to what she later related to Peter Benjaminson, she went to Berry and told him that she didn’t want that other group on her record. She managed to get their voices removed, but her resolve about it couldn’t have ingratiated her with Berry.

  The girls were then booked for a series of one-night stands in the South. On the way to Memphis Florence had too much to drink on the plane. By the time the group arrived at the hotel, she could hardly walk to her room. Diana was so upset that she called Berry from the lobby. “How’s she going to do a show?” she asked angrily.

  Somehow, they managed to get through that concert.

  The next morning, everyone congregated in the hotel lobby to take cars to the airport for the plane trip to the next stop, New Orleans. Everyone but Florence. The last anyone had seen of her she was on the phone talking to her family and crying. Diana and Mary rushed to her room and found her asleep on the bed, a half-empty bottle of liquor at her side.

  “Oh no,” Diana said. “Not again!”

  “It’s all right. It’s okay,” Mary said, trying to smooth things over. “I’ll help her. She’ll be all right. Just don’t call—”

  “Berry,” Diana finished Mary’s sentence. “Well, I am calling Berry,” she decided, and with that she ran down the hall. Meanwhile, Joe Schaffner helped Florence get dressed for the trip to New Orleans. In the plane, she refused to speak to anyone.