The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal (56 page)

It would get worse. The group came to New York for
The Ed Sullivan Show
, always a beaker for the Supremes’ dysfunction, on May 7.

Just before they went out and performed “The Happening,” Diana, on her own, pulled out a brand-new wig, a Twiggy-style, short-cropped number with a “peek-a-boo” curl partially covering one eye. As she’d told Mary and Flo nothing of this alteration, they were left with their

“old-school” bouffant wigs. By this, Diana was further separating herself from them, making herself the main attraction. Out of spite, when they came back on later to sing a medley of “Roaring Twenties” songs, Flo wore
no
wig, appearing with her own short hair, which actually was perfect for the “flapper” motif. But it left Ross and Wilson hung out to dry and violated Motown’s girl-group protocol of always being seen publicly under a wig. When reminded of this by Gordy, Flo said—

accurately—that the wigs were “plastic” and out-of-date for 1967.

“I ain’t gonna wear no fake white-girl hair,” she huffed, a rather trenchant observation of how racially
jejune
those wigs were—something that, sadly, had not occurred to Berry Gordy, who bridled when he found out that Flo continued appearing
au natural
at other gigs.

Unfortunately, that noble sentiment was obviated by other manifestations of her new fashion sense, which arose not out of any couture standards but from her corroding physical appearance. For example, she had begun ladling on gobs of mascara and eyeliner to divert the gaze from her bloodshot eyes, and layers of pancake makeup to buff her sallow complexion, lightening her skin to the point where she nearly appeared Caucasian. Somehow, though, they got through the two weeks at the Copa in style, with a
Variety
review rhapsodizing that the 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 290

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act was “polished to a high gloss.” That was followed by a five-day Midwest college tour and the Symphony Hall show.

But the Band-Aid covering the tensions could have come off at any moment. It nearly did when they appeared on
The Tonight Show
on May 22. Diana, sitting closest to Johnny Carson, was to do most of the talking, though an ebullient Flo would cut her off when she’d begin to speak, injecting her Pearl Bailey–like witticisms. Johnny brought up that there’d been a “stand-in” for Flo at the Hollywood Bowl and the ensuing rumors that the Supremes were going to break up. Flo jumped right in. “Listen, honey,” she drawled, “if all the rumors were true we’d have six children and would’ve been married six times” to much laughter.

Diana, feeling she had to address the subject in a more serious way, added that the group had “two young ladies,” meaning Barbara Randolph and Marlene Barrow, “as stand-ins.” “The show must go on,” she said. “Except for me. They can’t stand in for me.” Mary blinked her eyes at that, having not until then heard that there even
was
a stand-in for her. “That was news to me!” she recalled.

(Ross, as well, was less than truthful about no stand-in ever being used for her. Jack Ashford can recall a gig in ’65 when several of the Funk Brothers went out on a brief road swing backing the Supremes.

“We did it as the Earl Van Dyke Trio,” he says. “I don’t remember where we went but it was a real classy atmosphere, a Bill Gates–type crowd, the smell of money. And Diana didn’t want to do the gig, she refused.

So you know who they used in her place? Telma Hopkins [later of Tony Orlando and Dawn], and she sang her buns off. The crowd didn’t care that Diana Ross wasn’t there.”)

Gordy was still praying to the heavens nothing would go wrong when the Supremes pulled into L.A. for the eleven-day Cocoanut Grove gig. He needn’t have worried, as the engagement went like a charm and drew the usual round of rave reviews, the
Los Angeles Times
’

notice saying the show was “bombastic.” The reviewer should only have known how much so. The
real
fireworks didn’t go off until the next engagement, back in Las Vegas for two weeks at the Flamingo Hotel.

This turn of the road would mark the end of the line for Florence Ballard and, for the Supremes, a very tangible sense that they really mattered to the rock pantheon. For one thing, on Opening Night, June 28, 1967, the marquee read “
Diana Ross and the Supremes
,” taking the first step in the separation process for Ross. For another, Gordy flew in for the opening, now with the ink dry on the settlement giving Motown exclusive rights to Cindy Birdsong, who had been fitted for the 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 291

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same gowns the Supremes would be wearing during the run. Cindy, who had unnerved Flo for the past several weeks by sitting visibly in the audience of each previous stop, would be in the wings, in full stage dress, for every show, and there’d be a rack for her gowns alongside those for Ross, Wilson, and Ballard, and her own dressing room. Incredibly, Gordy thought he was actually keeping Cindy’s presence a secret, putting her up across the street at Caesars Palace so she and Flo wouldn’t cross paths.

Flo couldn’t refrain from stirring up trouble. Prior to opening night, she was skewering Gordy about his “dirty work” in giving Diana what she wanted and putting her name above the group. Knowing that Flo was not going to survive the engagement, he turned from confrontation to comity, sentimentally recalling the old days and telling her to “look at where we are” and “We made it as a
family
.” Cringing at his Sammy Davis–style “peace, love and togetherness” rap, and expecting the axe to drop at any minute, she responded in a way that was anything but sentimental. “Mr. Berry Gordy,” she seethed, “you’ll be sorry you started this war with me.”

Gordy didn’t know what to make of the oblique threat; nor, at this point, did he care. All he knew was that he was going to put her out of the group, though he held off at least for the opening show, not just out of sentimentality but also for a practical reason: By allowing her one more taste of glory, he hoped she might go more quietly when he dropped the axe. However, he regretted that decision. Seeing that das-tardly marquee must have broken Flo’s will, because she seemed not to have made any attempt to go on that night with a clear head.

When the spotlight went on, there were two Supremes and an im-poster from Central Casting. Plainly inebriated, Ballard had the clown makeup on, her wig was off-center, her eyes bleary. The outfits chosen for the first of the night’s two shows were—maybe not by coincidence—

completely inapt for her: mod, silver lamé pantsuits with a shocking bare midriff. Next to Diana and Mary’s board-flat stomachs, Flo’s full belly was more than conspicuous.

Worse, much worse, Flo decided to use her flab as a comic prop. At the point in the show where Diana did her “thin is in” line, Flo’s “ad lib” that “fat is where it’s at” came with an impromptu bit of choreography—

pushing her distended middle out even
further
and undulating like a freak-show belly dancer. While the audience hooted in delight—it
was
, after all,
Vegas
, not the Met—Diana and Mary tried hard to keep their smiles frozen despite their mortification. At his table, Gordy was beside 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 292

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himself. Already grimacing over Flo’s voice, which he said was scratchy and flat, he was unable to sit still. Bolting from his seat, he stalked backstage. Pacing furiously, at one point he yelled to nobody in particular, “Get her off the stage now!” Watching the show, everyone pretty much ignored him.

Indeed, the audience, merrily chugging drinks and enjoying every sight and sound of a high-octane, glittering performance from one of the world’s elite acts, found nothing amiss. The
Variety
review of the opening show would laud them as “superb,” and the run would be extended for a third week to accommodate the demand for tickets. However, like Gordy, Gil Askey, and Diana and Mary, Flo knew better. It was inconceivable that she could have believed she even belonged on stage with the Supremes—with
anyone—
now. When she stumbled offstage, she blew by the stagehands and the Motown leeches, scowling.

She headed for her dressing room, slamming the door behind her.

There, she sat alone, knocking back straight shots of vodka.

An hour later, zombie-like, she forlornly changed from the pantsuit to the more “Supreme-like” sequined chiffon gown for the second show, and went out to the wings where Gordy was standing alongside Ross and Wilson. A second later, Cindy came hurrying out of a dressing room, wearing the same gown they were. Flo began to walk toward them when a glowering Gordy stepped in her way.

“Flo,” he said sternly, “don’t you go up on that stage. You’re finished. You’re fired.”

“Berry, you better get the fuck outta my face,” she slurred, trying to push past him.

Diana, acting neither neutral nor surprised any longer, poked her nose in, telling Flo: “You’re too fat! Why don’t you stop drinking so much? Look at yourself. You’re as big as a house!”

“Why don’t
you
shut the fuck up? Why are you so goddamn mean all the time?”

Gordy steered it back to Flo. “You look terrible on stage,” he went on. “Look at Diana and Mary. You’re not holding up your end.” Tired of being picked on, she turned diffident. “Oh, I don’t care.

Just leave me the fuck alone.”

“I’m serious, Florence. You’re fired. If you go on that stage, I’m going to have you thrown off.”

“Bullshit. I got a show to do.”

He motioned to some bodyguards, who surrounded her and began guiding her away.

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Her head was spinning so much that she didn’t know which direction she was being led. Taken through the kitchen, with hotel workers happily waving at her in a surreal scene, she then was led into a service elevator and finally deposited in her room. Dumped on her bed, she was able to peel off the soggy gown and wig and slip on a blouse and Capri pants. She then crashed cold. It wasn’t until around noon the next day that she was awakened by the telephone. Pulling it to her ear, she heard the stern voice of Gwen Gordy.

“Joe Schaffner’s waiting downstairs,” she said. “Pack your bags.

He’ll drive you to the airport. When you get back to Detroit, someone’ll be waiting for you who’ll take you to Henry Ford Hospital. Berry wants you to rest.”

Later, Flo would recall that the only thing she could think of at that moment was that she
needed
a rest, a
long
rest. That was, of course, one of the cover stories Motown would promulgate by way of explaining for public consumption why Flo had “left the group.” But it wasn’t entirely wrong, either. Indeed, as Flo tried to sort out what was happening, it again didn’t seem like a firing but rather something like another reprieve. In any case, not having to perform at the Flamingo came as a great relief.

It was again Don Foster’s chore to take her from her room. Just as in New Orleans, he dragged her from her bed and washed her face. He collected some of her personal items like toiletries, makeup, and light clothing and stuffed them into a carry-on bag. Throwing a mink coat over her shoulders, he eased onto her face the oversized sunglasses she always wore outside to cover her red eyes and led her down to the lobby, passing her off to Schaffer, who eased her into the limousine. Flo, in a deep hangover, said nothing the entire time. Later in interviews she would remember that on the way downstairs a Motown staffer, whom she did not identify, egged her on not to “take any shit” from Gordy, and that she should “go out on that stage tonight.”

“This is Vegas,” she said he told her. “He ain’t gonna go out on the stage and drag you off. Go and tell those people out there what they’re doing to you. They came to see you, not Cindy Birdsong. Don’t let him break you, Flo.”

It could have been sheer persiflage, a good story told for effect and sympathy, but she insisted that for a fraction of time she considered doing just that, to shove it down Gordy’s throat and go out in a blaze of glory—something he seriously feared could happen right up until the lights went up that night. But the thought quickly passed, when she 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 294

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came to the realization that, as she told Tony Tucker, “I had no fight left in me. They won.”

Now that the war was over, the only thing she wanted to do was go home.

To some, at least, the change was jarring. Shelly Berger had gotten to Vegas too late for the first show on opening night: Nobody told me what had happened when I got to the Flamingo. Everyone was acting matter-of-factly, like everything was routine. So I sat down at my table with Berry, the lights come up, the orchestra starts playing and there was Cindy, not Florence.

I thought, “Couldn’t somebody have told me this? I’m only the manager of this group.” Of course, the show was absolutely fantastic and very few people in the house had any idea a change had been made. That’s how good Cindy was, and how proficient Diana and Mary had become. Life just went on, uninterrupted, like nothing had ever happened. And I never saw Florence again.

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nineteen

A

DISTORTED

REALITY

The Supremes’ability to continue uninterrupted would have to endure a setback even more serious than the erasure of Florence Ballard. In fact, though Gordy had done his best to ignore warning signs, his empire was beginning to splinter. While he globe-trotted with the girls and spared little time for anything or anyone else, the daily grind at 2648 West Grand Boulevard was winding down, most ominously threatening to dry up the lifeblood of the Supremes’

fortune—a seemingly endless supply of hit material.

A grim portent of that, though few knew it, was the first Supremes single to go out in the post-Ballard interregnum—“Reflections.” While it had Flo’s voice in its grooves, having been recorded before her termination, the song was so anguished and convulsive a confession about lost hope and dreams that it can be heard today as the theme song of Motown’s deteriorating soul—and, for the Supremes, of a group that in mid-1967 had reason to look back more in sorrow and pity than in accomplishment.