Diana Ross. Born March 26, 1944. Is an American singer & actress. She was the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes, Who became Motown’s most successful act during the 1960s & one of the world’s Best Selling girl groups of all time. They remain the best charting Female Group In History, with a total of 12 number one pop singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, including, Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love, Come See About Me, Stop! In the Name of Love, You Keep Me Hangin’ On, & Love Child. She departure from the Supremes in 1970, & embarked on a successful solo music career. Her debut solo album featured Her First solo number one U.S. single, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
Her second solo album, Everything Is Everything 1970. Gave her first UK number one single, I’m Still Waiting. Diana continued her successful solo career by mounting record setting worldwide concert tours, starring in highly watched primetime TV specials, & releasing hit albums, such as Touch Me in the Morning, 1973, Mahogany, 1975, Diana Ross, 1976, & Diana, 1980, as well as her U.S. number one pop singles, Touch Me in the Morning, Theme from Mahogany, Do You Know Where You’re Going To, Love Hangover, &, Upside Down, & her single. Endless Love, A 1981 duet with Lionel Richie, made her the female solo act with the most number one songs in the United States at the time. Her commercial success continued throughout the 1980s & 1990s with global hits, including, I’m Coming Out, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, All of You, Chain Reaction, If We Hold on Together, &, When You Tell Me That You Love Me. Diana also achieved success & recognition as an actress. Her first role was a portrayal of Billie Holiday in the film Lady Sings the Blues, 1972, for which she was Golden Globe Award winning & Academy Award nominated. Diana was the first African American actress to receive an Academy Award nomination for a debut film performance. She also recorded the films soundtrack, which was her only solo album to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. She also starred in two other feature films, Mahogany,1975, &, The Wiz, 1978, & later appeared in the television films Out of Darkness, 1994, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, & Double Platinum, 1999.
Diana Ross was named the, Female Entertainer of the Century, by Billboard in 1976. Since her solo career began in 1970, Ross has released 25 studio albums, numerous singles, & compilations that have sold more than 100 million records worldwide. She is the only woman artist to have had U.S. number one pop singles on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist, as the other half of a duet, as a member of a trio, & as an ensemble member, a total of 18. In 2021, Billboard ranked her the 30th greatest Hot 100 artist of all time. Her hits as a Supreme & a solo artist combined put Ross among the top five artists on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart from 1955 to 2018.
Diana Ross has had a top 10 UK hit in every one of the last five decades, she has sang lead on a top 75 hit single at least once every year from 1964 to 1996 in the UK, a period of 33 years in a row. A record for any performer. In 1988, She was inducted to The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Supremes, & is one of the rare performers to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. She was the recipient of a Special Tony Award in 1977, The Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 & 2023 (becoming the first woman to win the award twice, the latter as a member of The Supremes, & The Presidential Medal Of Freedom in 2016.
She was born in Detroit, the second of six children born to Ernestine Moten January 27, 1916 – October 9, 1984. & Fred Ross Sr. July 4, 1920 – November 21, 2007. Her mother named her Diane, but the birth certificate was mistakenly filled out with the name Diana. Her family & Detroit friends called her Diane all her life. Diana grew up with two sisters, Barbara, & Rita, & three brothers. Arthur, Fred Jr, & Wilbert, also known as Chico. Diana was raised as a Baptist. She was fifteen, when she joined The Primettes, the sister group to a male vocal group called The Primes, after she had been brought to the attention of music manager Milton Jenkins by Primes member Paul Williams. Among the other members of the Primettes were Florence Ballard, The first group member hired by Jenkins. Mary Wilson, & Betty McGlown, Williams’ then girlfriend. After the Primettes won a talent competition in 1960 in Windsor, Ontario, A&R executive & songwriter, Robert Bateman invited them to audition for Motown Records. After this following the success of her live performances at sock hops & other similar events, Diana approached William, Smokey, Robinson, who was her former neighbor, about auditioning for Motown, he insisted that the group audition for him first. Robinson then agreed to bring The Primettes to Motown, on condition that they allow him & his group, The Miracles, to hire the Primettes’ guitarist, Marv Tarplin, Who had been discovered by Diana Ross, for an upcoming tour. Tarplin ended up playing in Robinson’s band – bands for the next 30 plus years. In her autobiography, Secrets of a Sparrow, Diana wrote that she felt that this had been, a fair trade.
The Primettes, auditioned for Motown, before various Motown executives. In Berry Gordy’s autobiography, To Be Loved, Gordy recalled that he had been heading to a business meeting when he happened to hear Diana singing, There Goes My Baby, & that Diana’s voice, Stopped me in my tracks. He approached the group & asked them to perform it again, but, after learning how young they were, Gordy advised them to finish high school before trying to get signed by Motown. Undeterred, the group began coming to Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A. headquarters every day, offering to provide extra help for Motown’s recordings, often including hand claps & background vocals. In January 1961, Berry Gordy agreed to sign the group on the condition they change their name. Songwriter & Motown secretary Janie Bradford approached Florence Ballard, the only group member at the studio at the time, to pick out a new name for the group. Ballard chose, Supremes, reportedly, because it was the only name on the list that did not end with, ette. Upon hearing the new name, the other members weren’t impressed, with Diana telling Ballard she feared the group would be mistaken for a male vocal group, a male vocal group was, indeed, named the Supremes. Gordy signed the group under their new name on January 15, 1961. A year later, Barbara Martin left the group, reducing the quartet to a trio. In late 1963, the group had their first hit with, When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes, peaking at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart. At the end of the year, Gordy assigned Diana the role of the group’s lead singer.
In June 1964, while on tour with Dick Clark’s Cavalcade of Stars, the group scored their first number one hit with, Where Did Our Love Go, paving the way for unprecedented success. between August 1964 & May 1967,Diana, Wilson, & Ballard sang on ten number one hit singles, all of which also made the UK Top 40. The group had also become a hit with audiences both domestically & abroad, going on to become Motown’s most successful vocal act throughout the sixties. In 1965, she began using the name Diana from the mistake on her birth certificate, surprising Ballard & Wilson who had only known her as Diane.
Following significant issues with comportment, weight, & alcoholism, Florence Ballard was fired from The Supremes by Berry Gordy in July 1967, hiring Cindy Birdsong from Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles as Ballard’s replacement. Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & The Supremes. The group appeared as a trio of singing nuns in a 1968 episode of the popular NBC TV series Tarzan. Between their early 1968 single, Forever Came Today, & their final single with Diana, Someday We’ll Be Together, Berry Gordy is said to have drove Diana Ross relentlessly throughout this period & Diana, due to anxiety arising from Gordy’s demands of her, began suffering from anorexia nervosa, according to her autobiography, Secrets Of A Sparrow. During a 1967 performance in Boston, Massachusetts, Diana collapsed onstage & had to be hospitalized for exhaustion. Diana remained with the Supremes until early 1970.
A plan for Diana to establish her own solo career was to publicly introduce a new Motown recording act. Although she herself did not claim their discovery, Motown’s publicity department credited Diana Ross with having discovered The Jackson 5. Diana would introduce the group during several public events, including The Hollywood Palace. In November, Diana confirmed a split from The Supremes in Billboard. Diana’s presumed first solo recording, Someday We’ll Be Together, was eventually released as a Supremes recording & became the group’s final number one hit on the Hot 100. It was also the final number one Billboard Hot 100 single of the 1960s. Diana made her final appearance with the Supremes at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 14, 1970.
