“How can Mary tell me what to do, when she lost her love so true?/And Flo, she don’t know, ‘cause the boy she loves is a Romeo!” So go the lyrics of “Back In My Arms Again” sung by Diana Ross and the Supremes (Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard). Believe me, folks – back in the day when this song played in clubs and fans heard Diana singing about Mary and Flo, they would go  crazy!

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Miss Diana Ross is a singular talent and super-diva. She could not be a super-diva if she didn’t possess singular talent. 

Coming soon is an unauthorized biography that paints Miss Ross as — gasp! — ambitious. According to the author, Mark Ribowsky, Diana “knew she was on the fast track to stardom the day she got to Motown, and also — on 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.”

This is hilarious. OF COURSE Diana Ross knew she was going to be a star. Just like Barbra Streisand and Madonna knew they were going to be stars. There is a basic superego, fueled by insecurity that propels these people to behave as if they are something before they are anything at all. (The biographies of Ross, Streisand and Madonna read as one — a seamless homage to stunning self-confidence!)

But there has to be talent to back up steely-eyed bravado. Diana Ross was IT. She was the Supremes. She had the look. She had the sound. She had the iron discipline. She didn’t have to sleep with anybody to get where she got. It just so happened that Berry Gordy, after building her up, fell for her. (As talented as Mary and Flo were, they did not have the inexplicable “X quotient.” If Berry had fixated on either of them, rather than Diana, the Supremes’ giant success wouldn’t have happened as it did.)

Watch Diana Ross and the Supremes perform Back in My Arms Again on the Mike Douglas Show, circa 1965:

Eventually, Diana struggled to get away from Berry and Motown, probably to prove to herself — and to others — that she could be a great star without the support of her mogul lover. (And the secret father of her first child.) She did that. 

I have always had a feeling that a lot of Miss Ross’s “attitude” has been defensive. She knew people thought she’d gotten her breaks because Berry was infatuated with her, not because she was a once-in- a-lifetime star. The truth is, Berry Gordy fell in love with her talent. Then he fell in love with the girl.

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Personal P.S. I like Diana Ross. I knew her pretty well many years ago, and she was charming; not at all what her image was and came to be. I never saw her order anybody not to look at her, let’s put it that way. (Once, when Barbara Walters asked Diana about her rumored little ways, Miss Ross replied, “I have my standards, just as you do, Barbara.”)

And I have always admired how well she has raised her five children. Five beautiful young people, not one of whom has ever been in trouble. All seem devoted to their mother. I think it says something about the kind of person Diana is under the mask of her stardom and insecurity and what she thought she had to do to be “Miss Diana Ross.” Certainly, from Diana’s point of view, she was the mistreated, misunderstood party in the Supremes debacle. She was tending to herself, and hoping — when she thought of others — that Mary and Flo were tending to themselves. But you don’t become a famous star by worrying too much about anybody else.