The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal Read Free Page A

now as a magical formula; but back then, for hordes of teenage girls in particular, some probably very much like Sandra Bernhard’s Masha, all anyone knew was that the songs poured like batter out of transistor radios. We couldn’t wait for the newest pouring. It never took long.
    The Supremes’ breakneck ride was relatively brief in real time; in virtual time, it never ended. It began with three teenagers singing as a sister group for the band that would form the basis of The Temptations, 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:05 AM Page xvii INTRODUCTION
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    gelled in fresh-scrubbed girl-group primping, and finally went chic—
    and wonderfully campy to anyone tuned into those signals—with the pomp of flouncing gowns, gobs of mascara, and peek-a-boo-curl Sas-soon wigs. Ross herself, of course, was the musky voice and E.T.-like face of the trio: the supreme Supreme, the one with the “star quality,” the lure and slink of the kitten, and the claw of the tigress. She was an illogical and imponderable sex symbol: a quivering, writhing waif who without the wigs and face paint appeared emaciated and vacant. Ah, but then there was her mouth, large and open—“so inviting, so exciting,” as a phrase in one of her songs would have it—and coy bedroom eyes that put the come-hither into a line like “Come see about me.” The Diana Ross few knew outside of the Motown colony was on a fast rise to the top from the first day she got to Motown; not incidentally, that was also the first day she knew who she wanted to sleep with to keep up the momentum. That, of course, turned out to be Berry Gordy, but only after affairs with in-house tunesmiths Smokey Robinson and Brian Holland. In no time, Ross would climb beyond the group onto the A-List as a solo act, record six more No. 1 songs, and earn millions as well as top billing in two movies. She wears her haught—and haute—to this day, more than two decades after Billboard proclaimed her “Entertainer of the Century,” with little dissent; in her 60s, she still hangs tough on the A-List, even though her most recent CD, in 2007, rose no higher than No. 32.
    Ross in her Supremes’ incarnation may have been devious, quietly twisting the knife in the other Supremes while Gordy moved her up the company ladder. Still, even as a pop diva of epic dimensions, Ross never shook her identity as a Supreme, and has, in a way, been forced to bow before it. Indeed, the power of that brand can be an awesome thing to behold. Heavy as it is with sentimental value and immortal pop hooks, one measure is, inevitably, the bottom line. The fact that the numbers cited above dwarf Ross’s solo sales explains why, after decades of resistance to such a thing, she re-upped as a Supreme for a proposed world reunion tour in 2000, a beyond-lucrative project carrying a top-ticket price of $200. However, in a splendidly ironic role reversal, it was Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong who back-stabbed Ross; offered a fraction of the $15 million reserved for Ross, the pair refused to recede into her spotlight for a second time in their lives. Ross then tried to replace them with two nominal Supremes of the ’70s, but Supremes fans were interested only in the original configuration of the group and the tour 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:05 AM Page xviii xviii
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    was called off. Moral of the story: For all of Ross’s glitz and mega-diva status, she wasn’t the Supremes after all.
    To be sure, Ross, ever since her inner diva took flight in the late ’60s, has put forth a weird, un-Supreme-like vibe. It’s not only the haught; it’s the Supremes’ sensible glamour turned into an excess of self-parody.
    Not for nothing is the protoplast of Diana Ross—bejeweled and be-witching, hair teased to the sky and emaciated loins furbished by the latest neon-lit Bob Mackie or Issey Miyake original—the beau ideal of female impersonators worldwide and of the gay and transgender fans who