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Diana Ross

Encyclopedia : D : DI : DIA : Diana Ross

This article is about the American musician. For the author, see Diana Ross (author)
Diana Ross (born Diane Ernestine Earle Ross [link] on March 26, 1944) is an American soul, R&B and pop singer and actress. Ross is one of the most successful female artists of her era, both due to her solo work and her role as lead singer of The Supremes during the 1960s.

In 1976, Billboard magazine named her the female entertainer of the century. In 1993, The Guinness Book Of World Records pronounced her the most successful female artist ever (the title is now attributed to Mariah Carey), partly due to her combined total of eighteen number-one singles, six of them recorded solo and the remaining dozen from her work with the Supremes.

Contents

Biography

The Supremes

Main entry: The Supremes

Fred and Ernestine Ross had named and christened their daughter "Diane"; however, due to a clerical error, "Diana" was what wound up on her birth certificate [link] [link]. Regardless of the mistake, Ross would continue to use the name "Diane" through her teenage years.

Ross began her long music career with Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard and Betty McGlown as the doo-wop quartet the Primettes, a sister group to The Primes in 1959. After signing to Motown Records in 1961 and replacing McGlown with Barbara Martin, they changed the name of the group to The Supremes. Barbara Martin left the group shortly afterwards, and The Supremes carried on as a trio.

Although all the girls originally took turns singing lead, Motown chief Berry Gordy made Diane the permanent lead singer starting in 1964, because he felt her voice had the pop appeal the Supremes needed to cross over to white audiences. Ross also began using the name "Diana" at this time. Between the summer of 1964 and the summer of 1967, the Supremes released ten singles which went to #1 on the pop charts.

In July 1967, Florence Ballard was fired from the Supremes and replaced with Cindy Birdsong. At this time, the group was officially renamed Diana Ross & the Supremes in recognition of Ross as the focal point of the group. During this period, the group had two more #1 hits as Motown began plans for a Diana Ross solo career, which was announced in November 1969. In January 1970, Ross officially departed from the Supremes after a January 14 Farewell concert at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. However, history had already been made: Diana Ross & the Supremes bear the distinction of being the most successful American rock & roll group of the 60s. They were second only to the Beatles in chart and sales success. The group moved on with new lead singer Jean Terrell, while Ross put the finishing touches on her debut album.

Early solo career

In the spring of 1970, Ross released her self-titled debut. After the initial moderate success of what turned out to be Ross' signature concert song, "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)", Ross found success with her cover of Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's 1967 classic "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". The original 3-minute love duet was turned into a 6-minute dramatic magnum opus, where Ross was in spoken word half of the running time. The song would peak at #1 on both the U.S. pop and R&B charts, and Ross received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. After subsequent singles including "Remember Me", Ross focused on a movie career, which was spearheaded by Motown president Berry Gordy. The first project was a film about Billie Holiday.

Lady Sings the Blues

When it was announced in late 1971 that Diana Ross would be portraying the legendary Billie Holiday on celluloid, industry critics had a field day, primarily because she didn't look or sound like the jazz icon. However, Ross, Gordy, and the newly established film division of Motown Productions carried on with the film despite the criticism under the title, Lady Sings the Blues, which was the title of Holiday's 1959 autobiography. Ross totally immersed herself in Holiday's repertoire and instead of imitating Holiday's unmistakable voice, Diana Ross adopted Holiday's impeccable phrasing to eerie success.

Opening in theaters in the fall of 1972, Lady Sings the Blues became an instant hit and Ross received universal raves for her performance as Billie Holiday. Co-starring with Diana Ross were "Brian's Song" star Billy Dee Williams and comedian Richard Pryor in his first major picture. Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Ross for Best Actress. Diana Ross would lose to Liza Minelli (for Cabaret), but she did win Best Newcomer at the 1973 Golden Globes.

Ross covered a number of Holiday's songs for the film, including "Strange Fruit", "God Bless the Child", and "Good Morning Heartache", which was released as a single on the double-album Lady Sings the Blues soundtrack at the end of 1972. That album went on to hold the #1 spot on the album charts, and would be Ross' only solo album to reach that position in the US.

Touch Me in the Morning & Diana & Marvin

By 1973, Motown decided to return Diana Ross to her pop direction. With the Michael Masser produced "Touch Me in the Morning", she scored her first #1 pop hit in three years and received a third Grammy nomination. That same year, Ross released a duets album with fellow Motown artist Marvin Gaye entitled Diana & Marvin, scoring several charted hits. While the album was a moderate financial success, critics noted the lack of chemistry between the two singers. This was due to the fact that Diana Ross was expecting and Gaye refused to stop smoking his marijuana in the studio when the pregnant Ross was around, so their vocals were recorded separately.The album did, however, become a huge UK hit and produced some classic moments including their covers of the Stylistics' "You Are Everything" and "Stop, Look, Listen" and their own hit, "My Mistake."

Mahogany

After the success of Lady Sings the Blues in 1972, Berry Gordy arranged for Diana Ross to take the lead in Mahogany. After firing renowned British director Tony Richardson claiming he did not understand the Black sensibility that the film required, Gordy assumed directing duties himself. The story was about a young woman from the Chicago ghettos who dreamed of being a successful model and fashion designer. Again, she teamed up with Billy Dee Williams as her love interest.

Opening in the fall of 1975, Mahogany wasn't as critically successful as Lady Sings the Blues, though it was a bankable success in the box-office. The film's theme song and lead soundtrack single, "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)", hit #1 on the U.S. pop charts and was nominated for an Oscar. During the Oscars telecast, Ross became the first artist ever to perform for the Oscars ceremony via satellite; she sang "Theme From Mahogany" from a bridge in Holland where she was performing a series of concerts.

\"Love Hangover\", The Wiz, and diana

In 1976, Ross headed into disco territory with the release of the seven-minute dance single "Love Hangover". It became her first #1 R&B hit since "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and the first of many of her songs to appear at or near the top of the Billboard Dance/Club singles chart. "Love Hangover" was released from Ross' second self-titled album, which became a Top 10 Pop and R&B album that summer. In 1976, Diana broke concert records with a one-woman concert on Broadway. The concert was packaged into both a live album, An Evening with Diana Ross, and a TV special the following year. For her efforts, Ross won a special Tony Award.

In 1978, Ross was back in the film limelight, starring in the film version of the successful Broadway play The Wiz, with Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, and Richard Pryor. Many eyebrows were raised at Ross, then age 34, playing Dorothy, who in all other versions of The Wizard of Oz was portrayed as a young girl. The Wiz, which cost $35 million, making it the most expensive movie musical at that time, only brought in $13 million dollars during its original theatrical release.

Unfortunately, other projects Ross was planned to appear in, including a movie about Josephine Baker and The Bodyguard, which was supposed to co-star Ross and actor Ryan O'Neal as lovers, didn't come to fruition until years later. Actress Lynn Whitfield ended up playing Baker, and Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner ended up playing the lovers in The Bodyguard.

Diana Ross returned to her music career and released two strong successive albums: 1979's The Boss and 1980s diana. The former, produced by longtime Ross collaborators Ashford & Simpson, was hailed as one of her strongest solo recordings while the latter, produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of the legendary disco band CHIC, became the singer's biggest-selling record in her career, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. The diana album yielded two classic signature hits: "Upside Down", Ross' first #1 of the '80s and her fifth as a solo artist, and "I'm Coming Out", which became a gay anthem and cemented Ross as a gay icon. Both songs have since been heavily sampled by hip hop artists.

The album would have almost certainly continued to produce hits, but when Ross chose not to renew her contract with Motown, promotion on diana ceased and no further singles were released. When "Upside Down" hit #1, Diana Ross became the first female singer in music history to have ever placed 5 songs at #1, an unprecedented feat at the time that contemporaries Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin could not even lay claim to. It would be several years before Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Madonna would all tie and then break Ross' record.

The RCA era

Having established herself as the biggest-selling female artist by 1981, Ross felt it was the right time to leave Motown. She hit the top ten with the ballad, "It's My Turn" (the theme song from the movie which starred Jill Clayburgh). Around that time, she recorded a duet with Lionel Richie called "Endless Love", which proved to be the biggest record of her career, her last hit on the Motown label and her last #1 Pop record. The single was certified by the RIAA for 2 million units sold and helped to launch Richie's solo career.

In 1983 Ross reunited with fellow Supremes Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong at a television special for Motown's 25th anniversary. During the taping, Ross made a scene by allegedly shoving Wilson and knocking the microphone from Wilson's hand. There does appear to be varying accounts of what was supposed to have transpired. This incident was never televised, but generated much negative press at the time (Wilson recounted the incident in her 1986 biography). Also in 1983, Ross drew universal acclaim when a Central Park televised concert was ruined by a torrential rainstorm that came up less than 15 minutes into the show. Ross kept performing during the storm, while urging fans to go home. Promoters forced Diana Ross to cancel the show, but worried about disappointing her fans, Ross invited the entire crowd back the next day free of charge and close to 500,000 people turned out for the event. Ross received critical praise from newspapers for her showmanship. In 1986, Ross left a more permanent mark on Central Park when she funded the construction of the Diana Ross Playground.

She signed to RCA, and had success beginning with the platinum Why Do Fools Fall in Love; the title track of the LP was a cover of the Frankie Lymon hit. Ross continued into the early 1980s with the major hit singles "Mirror, Mirror" (#2 R&B, 1982), "Muscles" (#4 R&B and her final of 12 Grammy nominations, 1982), "Swept Away" (#1 Dance/Disco, 1984), and "All Of You" (#2 Adult Contemporary, 1984), a duet with Julio Iglesias. In 1984, she released "Missing You" (#1 R&B), a tribute to the recently deceased Marvin Gaye. Although the two singers were not particularly close it would become her final Top 10 hit. In 1986, she returned to Number 1 on the British charts for the first time in 15 years with the Supremes-inspired "Chain Reaction", which was written by the Bee Gees. Surprisingly, the single failed to crack the Top 40 in the USA although it also reached the top spot in Australia and the top 10 in several European countries. She returned to the Motown fold with Workin' Overtime in 1989.

Returning to Motown

Her Motown releases since 1989 have not been as successful in America as they have in Europe and Japan. For example, while 1991's The Force Behind the Power and the single "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" disappeared without a trace in America, the album and the song became bigger hits overseas. In fact, the single gave Ross a bold UK comeback, debuting in the Top 10 and peaking at #2 for 2 weeks over the holiday season. The album sold just under 600,000 copies and produced four additional hits: "One Shining Moment" (#10), and "If We Hold On Together" (#11; also #1 in Japan with over 465,000 copies sold), the title track (#27) and Heart (Don't Change My Mind) (#31). Following this success, One Woman: The Ultimate Collection went to #1 on the UK album chart in January 1994, selling 1.2 million copies in England alone, and 3 million copies throughout Europe. Ironically "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" became a #1 hit in the USA for the American Idol finalists in the summer of 2005. 1995's Take Me Higher and 1999's Everyday Is a New Day performed similarly in the USA, however there was a good deal of success in the UK with the singles 'I Will Survive', a particularly 'high energy' remake of the Gloria Gaynor classic and a remix of 'Not Over You Yet' both of which hit the Top 10 in the UK.

Diana expanded her versatility during this period by both recording a live opera album (with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras) and a live jazz album. Both releases did respectfully well on the Billboard Classical and Jazz Albums charts, reaching #1 on the former and the Top 10 on the latter. As a result, this made Ross one of the few artists to achieve success in other genres other than the usual Pop and R&B. After the moderate success of Everyday Is a New Day, however, Ross left Motown, but remains signed to EMI worldwide, excluding North America.

During the 1990s, Diana returned to acting, appearing as a schizophrenic in the 1994 television movie Out of Darkness, and as a singer who's willing to reconcile with a daughter (played by Brandy Norwood) that she abandoned as a baby in 1999's Double Platinum. Ross was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in Darkness.

Diva in Distress

Diana Ross was detained by Heathrow airport authorities in 1999 for assaulting a female employee. Ross reportedly felt the "body search" was rather invasive and retailiated by demonstrating the same gestures on the female security oficer. She was let go several hours later. In early 2000, the entertainment industry was rocked with the news that the surviving Supremes, Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, were in talks to reunite and go on tour. The tour, "Return to Love", was generating quite a buzz, however trouble arose when Wilson and Birdsong became unsatisfied with how much money promoters were offering them for their talents. Ross personally doubled the promoters offer to both ladies, but neither signed on. Undaunted, Diana Ross recruited ex-Supremes, Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, to stand-in. Laurence and Payne were both Supremes who joind the trio in the 70s after Ross' departure. News of the "replacements" scared away fans, despite a respectable crowd for the tours' debut in Philadelphia that summer. A few cities and shows later, the tour was cancelled altogether. It is here where many believe Ross' delf-demons were about to publicly challenge the Diva and cause her crown..to slip. On 30 December 2002, she was arrested for drunk driving after she went the wrong way on the road in Tucson, Arizona. Police reports say failed a sobriety testand that her breath-test indicated a blood alcohol level is 0.20% - which was double the legal limit in Arizona. On 20 May 2003, just 5 months after her arrest, she went into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Malibu, California, before she started her summer tour. On 9 February 2004, after she pleaded no contest to DUI and for driving under the influence, she was sentenced to 3 days and 2 nights, spending 59 hours in jail, in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Current work

In 2004, Diana Ross began touring again, first in Europe for the hugely successful "Love Life Tour", then later taking part in a brief tour in America as well, earning ecstatic reviews on both continents. She later performed in tribute to her friend and former Motown Records alum Stevie Wonder at the 2004 Billboard Music Awards, alongside Mary J. Blige and Destiny's Child.

Ross was chosen (at the age of 60) to be the 2005 face of MAC Cosmetics "Icon" makeup line. Her face was featured in magazines such as Vanity Fair and Vogue to promote the MAC makeup line. Her signature line of makeup featured limited edition pink makeup brushes and are now sold out and have become collectible. In 2005, Ross scored a hit with legendary singer Rod Stewart, whose duet with Ross garnered Ross her first charted Billboard single in six years when "I've Got a Crush on You" made a notable debut at #33 on Billboard's adult contemporary charts peaking at #19.

In December 2005 Diana Ross' first single of the decade, "When You Tell Me That You Love Me", was released in the UK. The song was a collaboration with the popular boy band Westlife, and debuted at inside the Top 5 with high sales (#2 UK, #2 Ireland). Ross is working on her next album which is scheduled for a fall 2006 release. Meanwhile, in mid-2006, Motown released Blue, an archived album of jazz standards Ross recorded with conductor/producer Gil Askey in late 1971. Amid positive reviews, Blue debuted at number-fiveon the Billboard Jazz Albums chart, then climbed to #number-two the next week.

Personal life

Diana Ross is the second of six children, three girls and three boys, from factory worker Fred Ross and teacher Ernestine Earle Ross, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. One of Ross' brothers, Arthur "T-Boy" Ross, was a successful songwriter for Motown helping to write hits for Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye. From 1971 to 1977, Diana Ross was married to music promoter Robert Ellis Silberstein, with whom she has two daughters (Tracee and Chudney). From 1986 to 1999, she was married to Norwegian businessman Arne Næss Jr., with whom she has two sons (Ross and Evan). Naess and Ross divorced in 2002 and barely a year later, Arne Naess Jr was killed in a mountain climbing accident on the continent of Africa. There has been speculation that Ross' brief bout with alcoholism was linked to the fact that her marriage to Naess was falling apart combined with the failure of the Supremes "Return To Love" tour. When Diana Ross performed in South Africa in 2005, she held a private luincheon meeting to thank the rescuers who searched for and recovered the body of her ex-husband and father of her two sons.

Before her first marriage, Ross had been romantically linked with Smokey Robinson, Eddie Kendricks and Motown chief Berry Gordy, with whom she had her first child Rhonda. After her first marriage, she dated actor Ryan O'Neal, and KISS bassist and singer Gene Simmons. Her oldest daughter, Rhonda Ross Kendrick is a singer and actress. Her second daughter, Tracee Ellis Ross is an actress who gained fame as one of the stars of the hit sitcom Girlfriends, now in its sixth season on the UPN network. Ross' youngest daughter, Chudney, in the meantime, is a model and television producer. Her TV credits include the reality show version of Fame with Debbie Allen. Evan Ross Naess, Diana's fifth child, made his screen debut at age 17 in 2006 in the film ATL and will attend Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Ross-Naess received good reviews of his performance. In 2005, Diana Ross was honored by Oprah Winfrey at her Legends Ball.

Discography

Albums

Motown releases
RCA releases (released internationally on Capitol-EMI)
Motown releases (released internationally on Capitol-EMI)

U.S. Top 100 Singles

Below is a list of Diana Ross' solo singles that hit the Top 100 on the American pop charts. Ross scored six U.S. #1 hits as a solo aritst; added to the 12 #1's she recorded as lead singer of The Supremes, Ross ties with Elvis Presley, having eighteen #1 hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100:

Motown releases
RCA releases

#1 Hits on R&B, AC, & Dance charts

Filmography

Television Work

Autobiographies

See also

External links

 

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