Ladies & Gentlemen...

...at this performance, the role of Diana Ross will be played by Judy Garland.

Be A Team Player

It's easy when you're your own group.

Terrific Trios

On This Day...

June 21, 1983.

For once in her life, Miss Ross discovered that she did NOT need the wind machine.

Say It Supremely With Music

 

Watch for The Merm making her Jean Terrell cameo at 3:25!

 

 

IRVING BERLIN
May 11, 1888 - September 22, 1989

Crystal Fab Persuasion

Birthday Roundup

Dead Ringer (Warner Bros., 1964)

Starring Bette Davis and Bette Davis

Score ("Figueroa") by Andre Previn 

"You're Gonna Hear from Me" from Inside Daisy Clover (Warner Bros., 1965)

Performer: Natalie Wood (dubbed by Jackie Ward)

Composers: Andre and Dory Previn

"It's Impossible" from Valley of the Dolls (20th Century Fox, 1967)

Performer: Patty Duke

Composers: Andre and Dory Previn

ANDRE PREVIN

April 6, 1929

"Trapped in the Web of Love" (Scopitone S-1057, 1965)

"Gowns, Beautiful Gowns" from Hillbillys in a Haunted House (Woolner Bros., 1967)

JOI LANSING

April 6, 1929 - August 7, 1972

Billy Dee Williams and Diana Ross in Mahogany (Paramount, 1975)

BILLY DEE WILLIAMS

April 6, 1937

Remember, darlings -- success is nothing without dolls, gowns, and a Colt 45 to share it with.

Pop! It's Diana-mite

Who is Diana Ross?

After 50 years in the spotlight, we should be able to neatly summarize who she is, and where she fits into the pantheon of divas. And yet, her mystique and persona are so hard to pin down; she can't be easily categorized. Aretha Franklin is the Queen of Soul; Donna Summer was the Queen of Disco; Dinah Washington was the Queen of the Blues; Tammy Wynette was the Queen of Country. But what is Diana Ross, who, arguably, became a greater superstar than any of these queenly ladies? Queen of Motown? Certainly, but that seems even more limiting than the single-minded monikers bestowed upon the other crowned heads of music royalty. "Queen of Pop," at first, sounds too generic (and, besides, Madonna fans would be up in arms); and, yet, it ultimately seems to fit: because Diana Ross has been criticized and lauded as being the epitome of pop. She was "too pop" for "real" soul music, critics charged; "too pop" to authentically portray Billie Holiday. A seemingly synthetic, sequined creation, all lashes, fingernails, hair and ambition; and yet, she embodied "a soft, silky pop queen...her notes slim and elegant...a perfect summa-cum-laude Supreme,"as journalist Richard Goldstein breathlessly reported in 1967.

"Fred and Ginger Medley" from The Hollywood Palace with Sammy Davis Jr. (originally aired October 18, 1969)

"Leading Lady Medley" from G.I.T. On Broadway (originally aired November 12, 1969)

"Corner of the Sky" from Pippin; World tour, 1973-74

From the very beginning, Diana Ross was a glamorous outsider. ("I didn't know what to do with a wig when I first put it on," Martha Reeves would later wryly recall. "Diana Ross, she knew right away.") Diana radiated the geisha girl allure of "a sultry glamour queen," proclaimed Ebony; a very different kind of appeal from that of her contemporaries, who were either sweet or funky or earthy or downright raunchy.

Ronnie Bennett and the Ronettes extended their eyeliner, ratted their beehives, hiked up their skirts, and seemed to let every man in the first three rows know that the party could be continued backstage, in the back seat, in the back alley. The Bluebelles looked like demure, shy schoolgirls, in their Peter Pan collars and sailor suits; then Patti LaBelle would let out a wail like a bat out of hell, and every wig would fly into the balcony of The Apollo. The Ikettes dripped bacon grease and hot wax all over the stage as they shook, strutted and shimmied, while Tina growled and sneered and jerked off the microphone stand. Dionne coolly stared into nothingness, over your eyes and head, as porcelain and pristine and aloof as the Bacharach-David mini-masterpieces she was spinning into the ether; Gladys, despite her remarkable voice, seemed the warm, comforting den mother, someone who would invite you in for Sunday supper with the folks; and Aretha was the testifying church mistress, demanding, and getting, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

And Diana? Diana seemed to come from another planet. Early in their careers, she and the Supremes were often compared, not to the women mentioned above, but to the Andrews Sisters or the McGuire Sisters: wholesomely glamorous, safe, as appealing to the white suburbanites tuning in to The Ed Sullivan Show or The Hollywood Palace as they were to the kids plunking down a dollar for the "Love is Like an Itching in My Heart" 45.

In her earliest televised performances as a Supreme, Diana demands your attention, in contrast to Dionne's icy detachment, but with an ultra-coquettish femininity that would be unthinkable for Aretha, Gladys or Patti, and a flutteringly seductive quality completely foreign to the baser instincts of Ronnie and Tina. Instead, Diana pops her eyes like Lena Horne in her 1940's MGM movies, and mews and purrs like Eartha Kitt, and her lineage to the glamour of old Hollywood, to the polite elegance of swanky nightclubs, rather than the grimy record racket or the sweaty Chitlin Circuit, suddenly becomes crystal clear.

"Mother Dear" from The Dean Martin Show (taped August 1965, originally aired March 24, 1966)

"C'est Si Bon" by Eartha Kitt, European TV, circa 1969/70

"Reflections" and "The Lady is a Tramp" from The Hollywood Palace (originally aired September 26, 1967)

"The Lady is a Tramp" by Lena Horne, from Words and Music (1948, MGM)

The question, posed as early as 1966, steadily became, "But is it soul?" Diana Ross probably never had time to worry with semantics, and, besides, she likely had absolutely no intention of "keeping it real," because the fantasy world of beautiful gowns, bright lights and the adoration of a huge audience -- the pop audience -- was undoubtedly much more appealing. "All I ever wanted," she insisted, without an apparent trace of ingenuousness, "was to sing and wear pretty clothes." And if no one could quite agree what she was singing, that didn't seem to matter much, either. "There is truly no popular singer in America who can touch her stylistic range," declared critic and historian Robert Palmer in 1977, "or her ability to put across a song's emotional charge without wallowing in melancholy or bombast."

Less is more: Aretha, Dionne and Patti tackle the Diana Ross songbook

Of course, Diana Ross has been perplexing her critics from the very beginning. She has been hailed for "her mastery of [the] quasi-operatic approach" to ballad singing; praised for her "near-weightless delicacy and tenderness"; and railed against for her "plastic simulations."She confounded the 1960's black stereotype of beauty by embracing her rail-thin physique at a time when the opposite was the norm, seeming to hold the bony British model Twiggy in esteem as her role model, rather than the curvaceous African American ideal. She confounded the stereotype of what a black singer was "supposed" to sound like, eschewing melismata and gospel-style runs for a more subtle, simple approach. She confounded sentimental fans by leaving -- seemingly dry-eyed and determined -- the group which had turned her into a household name. And she confounded her mentor, Berry Gordy, Jr., of Motown Records, by leaving the independent company she had called home for twenty years, for a $20 million offer (then the largest contract ever awarded to a recording artist) to jump ship, join a larger label, and call all the shots herself.

One rock critic dubbed Diana Ross "the Queen of Plastic Pop," and undoubtedly meant it as a derogatory title; but we think she should reclaim it, refashion it, as "the Queen of Elastic Pop," because no one has so effortlessly changed personas from song to song, with such flexibility and apparent ease, while still remaining "Diana Ross." The girl who sang "Baby Love" is different from the girl who sang "Love Child"; the woman who sang "Touch Me in the Morning" is different from the woman who sang "I'm Coming Out." The connective tissue is, of course, Diana Ross herself, and that indescribable, indefinable something that she brings to her songs. Like Madonna, she is an icon with more than one iconic pose; the wide-eyed, slightly naive skinny Supreme in the middle is as much "classic Diana" as is the broadly smiling, sequined mannequin surrounded by 70's Vegas tinsel, or the glittering, diamond-hard 80's power goddess staring down the elements in Central Park.

Ross by Warhol, 1982

So, really, who is Diana Ross? She's been a part of our collective consciousness, the pop culture landscape, the jukebox of our memories for so long. She is dramatic, theatrical, but not a tragedienne like Piaf; nor nearly as emotionally naked as Garland or Minnelli. She can be imperious and imperial, yet not as dangerous as Bassey, or distant as Streisand. She cannot truly be hailed as part of the soul sorority that embraces Aretha and Etta. She is not a singer/songwriter, per se (although, she has written a few of her album cuts); unlike Carole King or Joni Mitchell, she must fashion herself to her songs, not the other way around. What she is, perhaps, is a ballad singer in the oldest and strictest sense of the term -- a musical storyteller, putting poetry to rhythm. Her supple, slippery voice is the ideal instrument to convey multiple tales of love, loss, longing, lust. It is the perfectly flexible -- elastic -- vehicle for a songwriter and producer to channel whatever stories he or she wishes to tell, and Diana Ross will tell it well. Her countless hit records are memorable because of that voice, even if it can't be defined, described or duplicated.

DIANA ROSS
March 26, 1944

The Weekend Mix

Darlings, escape the St. Patrick's Day crowds this weekend with our playlist of absolutely random fabulosity. There will be sequins and safety gays and shopping trips with Joan Crawford. Enjoy!

We don't think there are words adequate in the entire English language to describe how surreal this 1969 promotional video is. It seems to have been scripted while the writers were drinking LSD-spiked Pepsi-Cola. Joan, for her part, actually seems fairly sober (it was hit-or-miss with Miss C. during this period), which means that she gives her line readings all of the intense authority she did with Mildred Pierce (1945) and Strait-Jacket (1964). And brother, are there some howlers (and head-scratchers):

"Like the grass...like the trees...like Frankenstein's monster!"

"It's like a hot dog, only Spanish!"

"Just eat your weirdo!"

"God, where does the grass come from? God, veal cutlets? God, rhubarb? Oh, no...not rhubarb."

"The supermarket is a remarkable place, if you stop to think about it."

In this clip, Miss Panda Eyes herself, Dusty Springfield, gives a fabulous, swinging performance of "Bring Him Back," aided by two enthusiastic safety gays bearing striking resemblances to Udo Kier and Noel Harrison, and who can't stay in synchronized rhythm to save their nellie necks, bless their hearts. The song is a cover version of an obscure American R&B tune by one "Sissie Houston"...yes, Cissy Houston under a strange nom-de-45. And, giving credit where credit is due, La Springfield leaves the great Ms. Houston's version in the dust.

Depending on how much we've had to drink, we find this clip of Rose Marie singing "Little Girl Blue" either wonderfully camp, or heartbreakingly touching. Perhaps it's both. Basically singing it in character as the perennially man-hungry Sally from The Dick Van Dyke Show, which was one of the top sitcoms when she taped this episode of The Dean Martin Show, Ro and her ever-present bows look and sound great. 

OK, this may be from a Duke Ellington tribute, but it's certainly not jazz. It is, however, an absolute brilliant transformation of a jazz standard into a highly theatrical, one woman, one act play. We can't think of anyone besides the eccentric Tammy Grimes who could pull that bizarre feat off, nor would we care to listen to any other attempts. This, darlings, is our all time favorite interpretation of one of our favorite songs.

Watching this legendary clip from The Ed Sullivan Show, it's clear that Miss Ross had far outgrown the confines of a group. She is completely committed to this lengthy, challenging medley from Funny Girl, and when she sings "I'm the Greatest Star," she doesn't sound as if she's trying to chase Streisand -- she really believes it, and we certainly aren't going to argue. Love or loathe her, it's impossible to imagine any of her contemporaries of the era even attempting something like this, let alone making it work. Watch for the big finish, as Ross throws her arms up in the air, and effectively blocks the faces of Mary and Cindy.

Finally, we have what can only be described as the ultimate cluster***k of stars -- the 1974 premiere of That's Entertainment!, hosted by Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis, Jr., and featuring "more stars than there are in the heavens." Enjoy, and have a fabulous weekend, darlings!!!

A Bird in the Hand...

...or on the head.

For Your Safety

Safety gays, that is.

The Mane Event

"Having a lot of hair is a big responsibility." - Diana Ross

Supremely Sketchy

Girlfriends

Diana Ross and Mary Wilson (with Florence Ballard reflected in mirror) backstage at The T.A.M.I. Show, 1964

Female impersonators, 1964

In both instances, we're fairly certain someone got bitch-slapped shortly after the shutter clicked.

And Then There Were Nun

Pick your favorite swingin' sister!

Debbie Reynolds in The Singing Nun (1966, MGM)

Diana Ross and the Supremes (with Ron Ely) on television's Tarzan (1968)

Rosalind Russell and Stella Stevens in Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968, Columbia)

Mary Tyler Moore in Change of Habit (1969, Universal)

We're Back...

...with a challenge for you! Meet our Divine Dozen:

These broads -- and we use that term with the utmost respect and affection -- are the most frequently-posted on SSUWAT. But only one, by way of your votes, can be named Queen of the Lot. Tell us who should wear the crown, and why. We can't wait to hear from you, darlings -- and, needless to say: we've missed you.