Fiasco turns Diana Ross' image upside down
PUSSSYKATT
What's a diva to do after being dissed?
The Diana Ross and the Supremes tour was a disaster, aborted in midstream by
abysmal ticket sales, half-filled arenas and a public unwilling to shell out up
to $250 to see a "reunion" trio that had never performed together.
So what happens now? To paraphrase Ross' Theme from Mahogany: "Does she know
where she's going to?"
"Diana needs to retrench," says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a concert
industry trade magazine. "She can go back and do a Diana Ross tour and play
smaller facilities at a ticket price that's more palatable to the public."
Or, Bongiovanni says, Ross can "make peace with Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong
and do a true tour." Wilson was a founding member of the '60s pop trio;
Birdsong joined the group in 1967 after the departure of original member
Florence Ballard. Months of behind-the-scenes negotiations for a projected
reunion of Ross, Wilson and Birdsong broke down because of financial
disagreements. Enter Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence, who briefly joined The
Supremes after Ross left for a solo career.
As for the likelihood of reuniting with Wilson and Birdsong, Bongiovanni says,
"We've historically seen deep divisions between group members be mellowed by
age and the lure of being able to make more money. Sooner or later, everybody
seems to get back together."
Not these three, says Tony Turner, who wrote All That Glittered: My Life With
the Supremes. He says he was associated with all the members of the group from
1965 to 1988, eventually becoming Wilson's road manager. "Miss Ross will never
work with Mary again. There's too much bad blood," Turner says. "I expect
she'll take this same tour with Scherrie and Lynda over to Europe and Asia in
October, where she'll get a better reception and she'll reinvent herself and go
on with her solo career."
Turner says Ross is in talks to be involved in a TV miniseries based on her
life. No word on whether she'd be in front of or behind the camera.
"Diana is a modern-day Norma Desmond who still believes the public is waiting,"
Turner says. "She has a point to prove now — that she is a bankable superstar
and that what happened to this tour was not her fault."
But Ross spokesman Paul Bloch says he's unaware of plans for overseas concerts
or a TV project. In her only public comment, Ross last week expressed "severe"
disappointment in the promoters for canceling the tour.
The fallout could hurt Ross' career, says Carl Feuerbacher, president of the
Mary Wilson International Fan Club, which has close to 3,000 fans worldwide.
"Unless she gets a hit record, this could be difficult for Diana to recover
from," he says, "and even though she's always had a solo career, that's not
going great, either." Her most recent solo album, 1999's Every Day Is a New
Day, sold poorly.
J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Diana and Call Her Miss Ross, says the diva
may be down, but not out. "The fact that the tour got so much attention speaks
to the notion that we still care about her," he says. "She'll do another album,
another tour, and it will just go on and on and on.
"I'd like to see her write her life story and do an album of more contemporary
music. I'd also like to see her give an honest, in-depth, soul-baring interview
to someone like Barbara Walters, where she really defends herself against some
of the unfair allegations about her."
Does he envision a Wilson-Ross reconciliation? "You have to first get them in
the same room before you can get them on a stage," he says with a laugh, "but
I've heard that Oprah Winfrey (who had the reconstituted Supremes on her show
before their tour) is trying to get them together."
Winfrey spokeswoman Lisa Halliday says Oprah hadn't heard the rumor, but "I
just spoke to her . . . and now that she's heard it, she thinks it would be a
fabulous idea."
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Orynarual
the show was fabulous. I was rooting for Lynda and Scherrie. I met Lynda
backstage at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, NJ back in 1972. She was
wonderful and signed one of my albums, along with Mary Wilson and Jeannie
Terrell. I've followed their UK tours and have their
import recordings---most of them. I went to see Lynda and Scherrie, but Diana
was truly Supreme. I got the 85 dollar tickets and got a good view. Ross ended
the Philly concert by doing 'Amazing Grace' with Luther Vandross and then
Luther joined the backup singers and Ross said 'This is for my girls! And you
know who you are' and then she launched into 'I Will Survive'.
I enjoyed the show and it was the highlight of my summer----so far.
Thanks for reprinting the article.
E/