Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Eventually, Ryan presented Diana with a rough draft of a proposed script for The Bodyguard based on the earlier treatment. Much to her dismay, this new version included a nude scene for her. So that there would be no misunderstanding, she made it clear from the moment she read it that she would not be naked on the screen. She had flashed a bit of breast in Mahogany, and that was as nude as she ever intended to be in any movie. Ryan worked hard to persuade her to reconsider, showering her with affection and a few expensive baubles. She wasn’t so naïve, though, that she couldn’t see through him. Still, she was vulnerable to him and, before long, had quite a little crush on him.

  On 26 March 1979, Diana hosted a birthday party for her thirty-fifth at her Beverly Hills home for friends, family—including her brother Chico and sister Rita—and celebrities. She greeted the fifty guests in a Galanos-designed, bare-shouldered, black silk crêpe gown. She wore it with a white jacket that was beaded with textured flowers. With her hair tamed into a French chignon, she looked stunning. That night, Berry presented her with a sable jacket as a gift. “Not baaad,” she said, laughing. Also present for the festivities was Mary Wilson, who was seven months pregnant at this time with her third child. She and Diana now spoke on the telephone occasionally. With the Supremes completely disbanded by this time, Mary was embarking on a new, solo career and eager to discuss it. However, it was Ryan who was the life of the party. Taking off his dinner jacket, he strutted onto the makeshift dance floor in the backyard and broke into wild gyrations to the Sister Sledge disco song “The Greatest Dancer.” As everyone gathered around and applauded, Diana stood starry-eyed on the sidelines. For her gift, he later presented her with a lovely and expensive amethyst ring, which brought forth copious ooohs and aaahs from the guests. “Isn’t he wonderful?” Diana enthused to many of the guests. “Don’t you just love him?”

  “Well, do you love him?” Rita wanted to know.

  “Love is a big word,” Diana said. “I mean, we have a connection,” she continued, “and I’m just going to follow it through and see where it goes.”

  After her birthday party, Diana and her three children spent a week with Ryan and his children at the O’Neal home in Malibu. Every day, the two families enjoyed picnics on the beach, after which a governess would gather Rhonda, Tracee, Chudney and (Ryan’s kids) Jodie and Griffin back into the house for bed. Such free moments gave Diana and Ryan a chance to share white wine and kisses on the beach. It was lovely and romantic.

  On 5 April 1979, Diana embarked on a six-week, twenty-eight-city concert tour of the United States. On the 8th, though, she had to return to Los Angeles from Baltimore in order to be a presenter at that year’s Academy Awards show. The night she got back, she and Ryan attended a private party at Alice’s Restaurant on the Malibu pier. One partygoer reported, “They were sitting very close together and gazing mistily into each other’s eyes.” The source also said that later, while stopped on a highway to have Ryan’s car filled with gas, the two became “locked in a passionate embrace, smooching in their car like they didn’t care who saw them. They were talking and laughing and kissing.” (One wonders if the witness was following them, or what?)

  A week later, Ryan joined Diana in Atlanta when she appeared at the Omni Theater there. It really did seem that the two were actually becoming a couple. At first, it was refreshing, but there were some annoyances. While he didn’t try to dictate to her like Berry, he also didn’t seem to take her very seriously. For instance, he would purposely antagonize her by trying to convince her employees to address her as Diana to her face. “It’s Diana,” he said, goading one staff member. “Di-an-ah. Try it. She won’t mind.” He had pretty much made a game out of the Miss Ross business, and also questioned her work ethic. One day, the two discussed what she expected of her employees while she prepared for a meeting. He told her in front of some of them, “Nobody can give one hundred percent all the time, Diana. They can’t. It’s an impossible request.”

  “Well, I just don’t see it that way,” she remarked. “Listen, Ryan,” she said, facing him. “The way I see it, unrealistic expectations drive people to do things that they’ve never done before. I, personally, give one hundred percent all the time, and I expect others to do the same. Is there anything wrong with that?” Then she turned to an employee. “And I thought I told you I wanted the Motown contract, not the William Morris Agency contract. You see, you must listen. I’m not upset now,” she added with a warning tone, “but next time, I will be. Do you understand?” The employee nodded.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” said Ryan, continuing the conversation, “if you don’t mind being constantly pissed off, because I can guarantee you, no one gives one hundred percent all the time.”

  “Now, why do you say that?” Diana said, pressing on while rummaging through her purse.

  “Because real people in the real world do the best they can with the time and energy they have. That’s why.”

  “Well, I guess I’m just used to a different way, then,” she observed. “A different world, maybe.”

  “Berry’s world, yeah,” Ryan said, shrugging his shoulders. “Berry’s way.”

  “Well, yes, in fact. Berry’s way,” she said. “And it sure worked for him, now didn’t it … Ryan?” With that, she snapped closed her purse. “And for me, too,” she added. “Okay. Gotta run. Love you. Bye.” As she turned to leave the room, Ryan rolled his eyes.

  In May 1979, to coincide with her tour, Motown released what many consider to be one of Diana’s best albums, The Boss, produced by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. The Boss not only gave Diana another big hit on the dance floors, it also reflected her new independence in that it was the first album in which Berry really had no involvement. After the disappointing ticket sales of The Wiz and an album she put out called Ross, The Boss was just what was needed. As recording artists, Ashford and Simpson had built quite a following and their last two albums had been certified gold. The timing was perfect to reteam them with Diana and, unlike with their previous collaborations, such as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” she had much more input. She would meet with Nick and Valerie to discuss the songs and what she wanted the lyrics to convey. As always, Ashford and Simpson knew how to get the best from Diana vocally, and there is never a moment on the record when she’s not performing to her fullest potential. Not usually known for vocal gymnastics, Diana does a vocal run on the title track that surprised and thrilled her fans.

  The Boss reached number one on Billboard’s dance chart and though it was very popular with pop radio it surprisingly peaked only at number nineteen on the pop charts. Even more surprising was the fate of the follow-up single, “It’s My House.” The song is well known as a Diana Ross hit, yet it never even charted on the pop charts, leading many to wonder what happened to Motown’s promotional department. The rest of the album was so strong that Diana’s stage show was revamped to include five out of the eight songs on it. The album’s jacket boasted a new, provocative look for Diana: long mane of hair and scant clothing that revealed plenty of legs and chest. The apparent message: I’m also boss of my own image now, too.

  It was ironic that Berry Gordy had been referenced in Diana’s debates with Ryan about the work ethic because, at this particular time, he and Motown were certainly not demonstrating much when it came to Diana’s career. As she worked to promote the record on the road, Diana discovered that her new independence had a price. The Motown contingent did little for her in terms of record promotion, and also wasn’t supporting her tour as it had in the past. She wasn’t as invested in the company as she’d once been and, in return, the company was losing interest in her as well. Berry didn’t do much—if anything—to help.

  Meanwhile, in August 1979, the moment of reckoning had arrived. After months of fun and games, Ryan finally wanted a firm answer from Diana about The Bodyguard. Had she changed her mind? Would she do it? Well … no. To explain, she said that she didn’t understand the need for so much violence and
bad language in the script. She most certainly would not do the nude scene, as she’d earlier stated. She also didn’t want to sing in the film and wasn’t happy with the title because it emphasized Ryan’s character, not her own. Ryan wasn’t pleased. It had taken her months to decide, and then the answer was no? He was done with her. The relationship was over.

  “She would call him from my shop while she was having her hair done,” said her hairdresser, Eddie Carroll.

  Apparently, he would instruct his secretary to tell her that he wasn’t home. She would hang up the phone so hard I was afraid she’d break the receiver. One day she went to the beach house in Malibu, barged in and started screaming at him. “I’m calling you and you’re ignoring me? How dare you?” Her feelings were hurt. She was pursuing him now, and didn’t seem to care who knew it. Certainly, everyone working in my shop knew it. But the guy had cut her loose and that was pretty much the end of it.

  A publicist who worked in Peter Himler’s PR firm, which represented Diana at this time, added:

  The National Enquirer had been tracking the thing between Miss Ross and Ryan O’Neal for months. They’d actually done a front-page story on it and were doing a follow-up [in September, 1979]. As a rule, I never called her with questions from the tabloids, but she happened to call me about something else so I mentioned it. “Miss Ross, the Enquirer is doing another story on you and Mr. O’Neal, do you have a comment?” There was a pause. She began in a thoughtful tone, “Well, tell them that Mr. O’Neal and I have decided that it would be best if—” Then she stopped herself. “Look at me,” she exclaimed. “I’m about to explain my personal life to the National Enquirer, so you know I must be going out of my mind. Just tell them that Miss Ross has no comment, whatsoever.” We laughed and she hung up.

  After he ended it with Diana, Ryan O’Neal became romantically involved with Farrah Fawcett; the two were then together for many years. He later demonstrated a startling absence of chivalry when he tried to put his brief affair with Diana in perspective for a Los Angeles Times reporter. “All of a sudden she didn’t want to play a woman guarded by a white bodyguard because Diana Ross doesn’t want to show her body, doesn’t want to do sex scenes on the screen, doesn’t want to sing and,” he concluded bitterly and without justification, “doesn’t want to be black. So, as you can see, we are no longer an item.”

  As for The Bodyguard, twelve years later, in 1992, it went on to be made by Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner—same basic idea but different particulars … and with no nude scene for Whitney either, thank you.

  Coming Out

  In 1980, Diana Ross celebrated nineteen years in the recording business—a long and successful career. After so many years in a very competitive industry, one would have thought that her best days as a pop star would have been behind her. How astonishing it was, then, that her biggest album was to be released in May—diana (with a lowercase d), produced by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of the group Chic.

  Between 1976 and 1978, Edwards and Rodgers had revolutionized the sound of disco music with their unique approach to music: striking guitar riffs and vigorous female voices all hued with multiple keyboard and string orchestrations. The duo had produced a number of hits for Chic (“Everybody Dance” and “Dance, Dance, Dance”) and then went on to work with the group Sister Sledge (“We Are Family” and “He’s the Greatest Dancer”). As producers, they had definitely developed a personal and identifiable sound. However, maybe too much so because when work on the diana album was completed, Diana felt that the material sounded too much like them… and not enough like her. After reviewing the final mixes, she sent the masters back to the producers with suggestions on how she would like to have them retooled. They probably thought she was just being difficult—after all, what did she know about mixing? They, like most of her producers over the years, believed that Diana didn’t know what she was talking about when it came to her recordings; remember how Ron Miller tried to trick her about the key in “Touch Me in The Morning”? So, they placated her with a slightly altered version of the album. However, when she heard this, she still wasn’t satisfied, nor should she have been because it really wasn’t much different.

  “We then sent the tape [to Diana] and said, basically, look, it’s your tape and these are your songs and now they belong to you,” said Nile Rodgers. “We have a deal. We agreed to make a record and if you’re not happy with the way we have your voice sounding, it’s best that you do what you must do.” In other words, they were sick of the project and wanted out, and if she wanted to remix it, fine. “Great! Thanks very much,” Diana said. Then, she actually did remix it—much to the original producers’ dismay. Indeed, Motown recording engineer Russ Terrana reworked the entire album at her direction. He chose alternative vocal takes and brought Diana more to the front of the mix. He also reedited several of the tracks, making the songs immediately more commercial. “I was shocked when they finally sent the songs to me again,” Nile Rodgers said. “I was furious and got on the phone right away and called Motown. I was asked to listen to the album and then talk to Diana. I calmed down and listened to it about ten times. Then, I had to say, hey, I know where they’re coming from—I understand what they’re doing. But, initially, I was not prepared for that kind of shock.”

  “I proceeded to make the record more Diana Ross and far less Chic-ish,” Diana later explained. “Besides, they’ve only been in the business, what, two years? I believed my twenty years’ experience in show business would be of value to the project.”

  Happy with it or not, Rodgers and Edwards still demanded that a disclaimer be added to all trade advertisements purchased by Motown, crediting Ross and Terrana with the new mixes. (In 2003, this LP was reissued on compact disc by Motown in a deluxe edition, putting an end to the mystery surrounding the Chic mixes. Both versions of the album are included on the CD.)

  After it was completed, even Diana began to have second thoughts about the album, and Motown’s promotional staff thought for sure that it was going to be a commercial failure. In truth, it really was—even with the new mixes—pretty much a Chic album with Diana on vocals. But, as is often the case in the record business, the first single released from an album, in this case “Upside Down,” somehow appealed to the buying public. Despite the fact that it sounds pretty much like a nursery rhyme set to disco music (Diana had told Rodgers and Edwards that she wanted songs her children could sing, and that’s precisely what she got), it was a huge hit—number one for more than a month and nominated for a Grammy award (in the Best Female R&B Performance category). The follow-up, “I’m Coming Out,” a much better and more challenging song, went to number five and became especially popular after gay discos began promoting it as an anthem of self-expression and acceptance. It and “Upside Down’ then enjoyed simultaneous chart success.

  “I’m Coming Out” also seemed to convey another more obvious personal message from Diana, who had definitely come out from under Berry’s thumb at this time and, from the look of this album, was having great success doing it. diana—another album which Berry had nothing to do with—was certified platinum and became one of—if not the—biggest-selling album in her entire career. The album’s success seems ironic in that it’s actually one of her least exciting or even interesting records. Most of her vocal performances are a bit mechanical; however, the music was hot and driving, which was apparently enough for her many fans. The album peaked at number two on the national sales chart; number one was held by Barbra Streisand and her Guilty album, produced by Barry Gibb.

  Toward the end of 1980, Michael Masser produced what most critics still consider to be Diana’s most passionate ballad performance, “It’s My Turn,” the title theme to a motion picture starring Jill Clayburgh, Michael Douglas and Charles Grodin. Again, this song seemed to reflect Diana’s life at the time, an evocative statement of self-affirmation delivered in a truly compelling style. “The first time Diana heard ‘It’s My Turn’ was when I played it for her on the piano i
n Berry’s office,” Michael Masser recalled. “She immediately felt it captured something that she was experiencing at that particular time. The story was significant to her, and when she sang it, I got goose bumps.” Indeed, she sings of having once seen her entire life “through someone else’s eyes.” But not any more. Now, “It’s my turn.” Her fans, who knew nothing about her personal problems, were fascinated, albeit a bit confused. The possibility that the song actually had personal meaning for her—that the lyrics might even be prophetic—seemed remote yet intriguing. Her voice is clear, strong and emotional; she had never sounded better. “I never wanted to overkill or bury her voice on my productions,” Michael Masser explained. “I kept her sound up front because no one sounds better than Diana Ross when she’s giving her all to a performance.”

  Following right behind “Upside Down” and “I’m Coming Out,” “It’s My Turn” was a natural for the Top 10. It rounded out 1980 as a stellar year for Diana Ross as a recording star—three Top 10 singles.

  Diana leaves Motown

  Because of the fact that Berry Gordy didn’t have much to do with any of her latest recording successes at Motown, Diana Ross was justifiably filled with self-confidence about the future. When rumors began to surface that she might actually leave Motown in order to facilitate a final break with him, it seemed impossible to imagine. After all, she still embodied the spirit of Motown. Arm in arm, she and Berry had made a most significant contribution to entertainment by breaking through the racial and class barriers that had kept black music from commercial acceptance. They had also conquered the worlds of film and television. Of course, there had been other black artists who had made major breakthroughs over the years—Nat “King” Cole, Lena Horne, Johnny Mathis, Louis Armstrong and Sammy Davis Jr. to name a few—but in terms of contemporary popular music and the acceptance of blacks in that field, the impact that Berry and Diana had made is of major importance. Still, there had been a lot of unhappiness along the way for Diana and by 1980 she was considering her options. In November of that year, after “It’s My Turn” was released, Ross’s contract with Motown expired. For the first time, she did not rush to renew it.