Good morning, WA2K, folks.
Well, last evening it was a contest between Brook Benton and Buddy Holly.
Thanks, Ragman and edgar. Hey, how did the Fleetwoods get in there?
Today is Lena Horne's birthday so let's hear one by the lady, ok?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMf0Z7EPdLo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4I5e_kJOZA
Here is Lena on a TV show called Jazzland. The graphics are poor, but the music is fantastic.
Thanks, edgar. Actually, all, Lena doesn't need to be seen just heard. Amazing woman. Thanks, Texas.
Just like Ray, folks, I got Georgia on my mind this morning. I guess the reason has to do with Cold Case files from TV. Last evening, it had to do with Japanese Americans who were interred in a camp after Pearl Harbor.
So here's one that rather resembles that situation as does "Long Black Veil"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqZVZGo2mXc
Susan Hayward
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Edythe Marrenner
June 30, 1917(1917-06-30)
Brooklyn, New York
Died March 14, 1975 (aged 57)
Hollywood, California
Spouse(s) Jess Barker (1944-1954) 2 children
Floyd Eaton Chalkley (1957-1966)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Actress
1958 I Want to Live!
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy
1953 With a Song in My Heart
Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1959 I Want to Live!
Other Awards
Best Actress Award - Cannes Film Festival
1956 I'll Cry Tomorrow
Susan Hayward (June 30, 1917 - March 14, 1975) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.
Biography
Early life
Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn, New York to Walter Marrenner and Ellen Pearson. Her maternal grandparents were from Sweden.[1] She began her career as a photographer's model, going to Hollywood in 1937, aiming to secure the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Her screen name was chosen by her management because it was "as close to Rita Hayworth as we can get away with."
Career
Although she did not win the role of Scarlett O'Hara, Hayward found employment playing bit parts until she was cast in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper. During the war years, she played leading lady to John Wayne twice, in Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and The Fighting Seabees (1944). She also starred in the film version of The Hairy Ape (1944). Later in 1955, she was cast by Howard Hughes to play Bortai in the historical epic The Conqueror, again opposite John Wayne.
in Yank, the Army Weekly (1945)After the war, she established herself as one of Hollywood's most popular leading ladies in films such as Tap Roots (1948), My Foolish Heart (1949), David and Bathsheba (1951), and With a Song in My Heart (1952).
In 1947, she received the first of five Academy Award nominations for her role as an alcoholic nightclub singer in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman.
During the 1950s she won acclaim for her dramatic performances as President Andrew Jackson's melancholic wife in The President's Lady (1953); the alcoholic actress Lillian Roth in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), based on Roth's best-selling autobiography of the same name, for which she received a Cannes award; and the real-life California murderer Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958). Hayward's portrayal of Graham won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. She replaced the fired Judy Garland as Helen Lawson in the 1968 film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls.
She received good reviews for her performance in a Las Vegas production of Mame, but left the production because she felt unprepared for the demands the role made on her voice[citation needed]. She blamed herself for not wanting to spend the money on voice lessons that might have allowed her to keep the role[citation needed]. She was replaced by Oscar-winning actress and singer Celeste Holm.
She continued to act throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Her final film role was as Dr. Maggie Cole in the 1972 made-for-TV drama Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole. (The film was intended to be a pilot episode for a weekly television series, but due to Hayward's cancer diagnosis and failing health, the series was never produced.) Her last public appearance was at the 1975 Oscar telecast to present the Best Actress award, despite the fact she was very ill. With Charlton Heston supporting her, and having been given massive doses of dopamine[citation needed], she managed to get through it. Hayward later stated, "that's the last time I do that."[citation needed]
Personal life
According to the Internet Movie Database, Susan's personality was usually described as cold, icy, and aloof. She did not like socializing with crowds. She disliked homosexuals and effeminate men. Her taste in love ran strictly to the masculine, and both of her husbands were rugged Southerners. She loved sport fishing, and owned three ocean going boats for that purpose. Movie directors enjoyed Susan's professionalism and her high standards. She was considered easy to work with, but she was not chummy after the cameras stopped.
In December 1964, she was baptized a Catholic at SS Peter and Paul's Roman Catholic Church on Larimar Avenue, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, by one Father McGuire. She had met McGuire while in China and promised him that if she ever converted, he would be the one to baptize her[citation needed].
Hayward died at age 57 on March 14, 1975, of pneumonia-related complications of her brain cancer, having survived considerably longer than doctors had originally predicted. She was cremated and buried next to her second husband, Eaton Chalkley, with whom she had converted to Roman Catholicism, in Carrollton, Georgia. Chalkley was by all accounts the love of Hayward's life[who?], and they had lived together happily in Carrollton for years before his death in 1966. She was survived by her two sons.
Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard.
Lena Horne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Lena Mary Calhoun Horne
Born June 30, 1917 (1917-06-30) (age 91)
Origin Brooklyn, New York, USA
Genre(s) Jazz, Pop, Broadway
Occupation(s) Singer, Actress
Years active 1938-2000
Label(s) MGM Records, RCA, Blue Note, Black & White, Charter
Associated acts Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Doris Day
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (born June 30, 1917), is an iconic American singer and actress. She has recorded and performed extensively, independently and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Barnet. She currently lives in New York City and no longer makes public appearances.[1]
Early life
Lena Horne was born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in an upper middle class black community. Her father, Edwin "Teddy" Horne, who worked in the gambling trade, left the family when she was three. Her mother, Edna Scottron, was the daughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron; she was an actress with an African American theater troupe and traveled extensively. Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne. Her uncle, Frank S. Horne, was an adviser to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[2] She is a reported descendant of the John C. Calhoun family [3].
Lena Horne made her film debut starring as "the Bronze Venus" in The Duke is Tops, a 1938 musical.
Career
In the fall of 1933, Lena Horne joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade. A few years later she joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra and toured with this orchestra. After she separated from her first husband, Lena Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940-41, but disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Cafe Society in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June of 1941 for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after only six months to headline a nightclub revue on the west coast; she was replaced by Linda Keene.
Lena Horne already had two low-budget movies to her credit: a 1938 musical feature called The Duke is Tops (later reissued with Horne's name above the title as The Bronze Venus); and a 1941 two-reel short subject, Boogie Woogie Dream, featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released individually as Soundies. Horne was primarily a nightclub performer during this period, and it was during a 1942 club engagement in Hollywood that talent scouts approached Horne to work in pictures. She chose Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the most prestigious studio in the world, and became the first African American performer to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio.
She made her debut with MGM in 1942's Panama Hattie and became famous in 1943 for her rendition of "Stormy Weather" in the movie of the same name (which she made at 20th Century Fox, on loan from MGM). She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably Cabin in the Sky (also 1943), but was never featured in a leading role due to her race and the fact that films featuring her had to be reedited for showing in southern states where theaters could not show films with African American performers. As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline; a notable exception was the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky, though even then one of her numbers had to be cut because it was considered too suggestive by the censors. In Ziegfeld Follies (1946) she performs "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane.
She was originally considered for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's 1951 version of Show Boat (having already played the role when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By) but Ava Gardner was given the role instead (the production code office had banned interracial relationships in films). In the documentary That's Entertainment! III Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing using recordings of Horne performing the songs, which offended both actresses (ultimately, Gardner ended up having her singing voice overdubbed by another actress (Annette Warren (Smith)) for the theatrical release, though her own voice was heard on the soundtrack album).
Changes of direction
By the mid-1950s, Horne was disenchanted with Hollywood and increasingly focused on her nightclub career. She only made two major appearances in MGM films during the decade, 1950's Duchess of Idaho (which was also Eleanor Powell's film swan song), and the 1956 musical Meet Me in Las Vegas. She was blacklisted during the 1950s for her political views.[4] She returned to the screen three more times, playing chanteuse Claire Quintana in the 1969 film Death of a Gunfighter, Glinda in The Wiz (1978), and co-hosting the 1994 MGM retrospective That's Entertainment! III, in which she was candid about her treatment by the studio. In her later years, Horne also made occasional television appearances - generally as herself - on such programs as The Muppet Show (where she sang with Kermit the Frog) and Sanford and Son in the 1970s, as well as a 1985 performance on The Cosby Show and a 1993 appearance on A Different World.
She appeared in Broadway musicals several times and in 1958 was nominated for the Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica) In 1981 she received a Special Tony Award for her one-woman show, Lena Horne: "The Lady and Her Music". Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she was not inclined to capitalize on the renewed interest in her career by undertaking many new musical projects. A proposed 1983 joint recording project between Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and her sole studio recording of the decade was 1988's The Men In My Life, featuring duets with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joe Williams. In 1989, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
The 1990s found Horne considerably more active in the recording studio - all the more remarkable considering she was approaching her 80th year. Following her 1993 performance at a tribute to the musical legacy of her good friend Billy Strayhorn (Duke Ellington's longtime pianist and arranger), she decided to record an album largely comprised of Strayhorn's and Ellington's songs the following year, We'll Be Together Again. To coincide with the release of the album, Horne made what would be her final concert performances at New York's Supper Club and Carnegie Hall. That same year, Horne also lent her vocals to a recording of "Embraceable You" on Sinatra's "Duets II" album. Though the album was largely derided by critics, the Sinatra-Horne pairing was generally regarded as its highlight. In 1995, a "live" album capturing her Supper Club performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In 1998, at the age of 81, Horne released another studio album, entitled Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne essentially retired from performing and largely retreated from public view, though she did return to the recording studio in 2000 to contribute vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.
Civil Rights activism
Horne also is noteworthy for her contributions to the Civil Rights movement. In 1941, she sang at Cafe Society and worked with Paul Robeson, a singer who also combated American racial discrimination. During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or to groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen" [5], according to her Kennedy Center biography. She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi the weekend before Evers was assassinated. She was at the March on Washington and spoke and performed in behalf of the NAACP, SNCC and the National Council for Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws. [6]
Tributes and rereleases
In 2003, ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a television biopic (after it was rumored for years that Whitney Houston would take the job). In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl, however, Variety reported that Horne demanded Jackson be dropped from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne's demand," according to the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the trade newspaper that she left willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.
In January 2005, Blue Note Records, her label for more than a decade, announced that "the finishing touches have been put on a collection of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne made during her time on Blue Note. Remixed by her longtime producer Rodney Jones, the recordings featured Horne in remarkably secure voice for a woman of her years, and include versions of such signature songs as 'Something To Live For', 'Chelsea Bridge' and 'Stormy Weather'." The album, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of a Life, was released on January 24, 2006.
In 2007, Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams in the stage musical, "Stormy Weather," which will play at the Pasadena Playhouse in California in January and February of 2009.
Personal life
Horne married Louis Jordan Jones in January 1937 and they lived in Pittsburgh. In December 1937 they had a daughter, Gail and in February 1940, a son, Edwin. Horne and Jones separated in 1940 and they divorced in 1944.
Lena Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, a Jewish American, from December 1947 until his death in 1971. Hayton was one of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM. In her as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial married couple. However, she later admitted (Ebony, May 1980) that she really married Hayton to advance her career and cross the "color-line" in show business.
Horne is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.
Nancy Dussault
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nancy Dussault (born June 30, 1936 in Pensacola, Florida) is an American singer and actress. She grew up as a "Navy junior". A former resident of Arlington, Virginia, she graduated from Washington-Lee High School (W-L) where she was an actress and singer in the formidable W-L drama program under director Jack Jeglum and a choral singer in the nationally known Washington-Lee High School Choir and Madrigal Singers under director Florence Booker.
In 1962, Dussault stepped into the role of Maria in the Broadway production of The Sound of Music. She received a Tony Award nomination in 1961 for Best Featured Actress (Musical) for Do Re Mi and was nominated for her performance in Bajour (1965). She appeared in the City Center Gilbert & Sullivan NYC Company, directed by Dorothy Raedler, with such Metropolitan Opera singers as Nico Castel, Muriel Costa-Greenspon, and Frank Poretta, Sr.
On television, she was a regular on the 1970s show The New Dick Van Dyke Show and played Ted Knight's wife in the role of Muriel Rush on Too Close for Comfort.
She was the first anchor of Good Morning America, working with David Hartman, when the show started in 1975.
She was the first actress to portray the character of Theresa Stemple, the mother of character Jamie Stemple Buchman, in season one of the long-running NBC 1990s TV series, Mad About You.
She lives in California with her husband and has no children.
Florence Ballard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Florence Glenda Ballard
Also known as Florence Chapman
Born June 30, 1943(1943-06-30)
Origin Detroit, Michigan
Died February 22, 1976 (aged 32)
Detroit, Michigan
Genre(s) R&B/pop/soul
Occupation(s) Singer
Instrument(s) Vocals
Years active 1959-1975
Label(s) Motown Records, ABC
Associated acts The Supremes
Florence Glenda Ballard Chapman, nicknamed "Flo" or "Blondie", (June 30, 1943 - February 22, 1976) was one of the original members of The Supremes.
By mid 1967, Ballard's and her band mate Mary Wilson's importance lessened as Supremes as Diana Ross was spotlighted. Ballard suffered from chronic depression and alcoholism, leading to her dismissal from the Supremes in July 1967 and replacement by Cindy Birdsong. After an unsuccessful attempt at a solo career in the late 1960s, Ballard spent much of the last five years of her life in relative poverty before dying in 1976 at the age of thirty-two. Ballard has been referred to by music journalist Richie Unterberger as "one of rock's greatest tragedies".[1]
Biography
Early life
Ballard was born in Detroit, Michigan (although many sources incorrectly list her birthplace as Rosetta, Mississippi), of mixed African-American, Native American and European American heritage to parents from Mississippi, Jessie Lambert and his wife, Lurlee Wilson. Jessie Lambert was adopted by a family named Ballard, and took their name.
Florence was the eighth of fifteen children. The Ballard family had moved to Detroit in hopes of a better life and to take place in the booming job market; Jessie Ballard found work at General Motors.
Ballard, nicknamed " Blondie" because of her auburn hair and light complexion, was a founding member of The Primettes, an all-girl singing group spinoff from The Primes (later known as The Temptations), in 1959. Ballard's groupmates included her classmate Mary Wilson, Wilson's friend Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown, girlfriend of the Primes' Paul Williams. McGlown was later replaced by Barbara Martin.
According to Peter Benjaminson's The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard, Ballard was raped by basketball player Reggie Harding, in 1960. [2] At the time, Harding was a friend of one of Ballard's brothers, and Ballard accepted Harding's offer of a ride home after she attended a local sock hop at Detroit's Graystone Ballroom. Instead, he drove her north to an empty parking lot off of Woodward Avenue in Detroit and raped her at knife point. Her rape was never again mentioned, either in clinical therapy nor social conversation. [3]
The Supremes
Ballard, Ross, and Wilson shared leads on the Primettes' songs, and performed in local venues around the Detroit area. The Primettes would eventually sign to the Motown label as The Supremes, a name chosen by Ballard, on January 15, 1961.
In the early days of The Supremes, all three girls took turns singing lead vocals. Florence sang lead on the second Supremes single, "Buttered Popcorn." According to fellow Supreme Mary Wilson, Ballard's voice was so loud that she was made to stand up to seventeen feet away from her microphone during recording sessions, while the other two Supremes stood directly in front of their microphones.[4] During this period, Ballard also briefly toured with The Marvelettes as a replacement for Wanda Young, who was out on maternity leave.
Diane Ross was made lead singer of the Supremes in late 1963, as Motown CEO Berry Gordy believed that Ross' voice, with its high, nasal quality, would help the group cross over to white audiences. Assigned to work with songwriting/production team Holland-Dozier-Holland, Ross, Ballard, and Mary Wilson subsequently released ten number-one US pop hits between 1964 and 1967, all of which featured Ross as lead.
Ballard never again sang lead on another released 45 but she had several leads and lead parts throughout her Supreme career on Supremes albums. Most notable are the second verse of "It Makes No Difference Now" from The Supremes Sings Country Western and Pop, "Ain't That Good News" from We Remember Sam Cooke plus a few later released Christmas songs, "Silent Night" and "O'Holy Night." Wilson was also given the lead on "Come and Get These Memories", on the A'Go Go album and a partial lead with Ross on "Falling in Love with Love" on the Supremes Sing Rogers and Hart album, while Florence and Ross traded leads on "Manhattan" on the same album. Initially Ballard continued to sing a spotlight solo number, "People" from the Broadway musical Funny Girl, for the Supremes' stage show. In 1966, just prior to opening at the Copacabana supper club in New York City, Ballard complained of a sore throat and asked that she not rehearse "People" to save her voice for the performance. Gordy assigned "People" to Ross. Thus began a marked decline between Gordy and Ballard.
Over the next two years, Ballard and Gordy argued frequently, particularly as Ross became the group's centerpiece.
In early 1967, it was announced that Gordy would be changing the groups name to "Diana Ross & the Supremes". As the year progressed, Ballard frequently missed public appearances; and sometimes missed recording sessions as well. Gordy hired Cindy Birdsong, a singer with Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles, as a stand-in for Ballard in April 1967. By May, it was agreed that Birdsong would become Ballard's permanent replacement. Ballard's final performance with the group was their first appearance at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. She was sent home following the first show, after having stuck out her stomach from between the jacket and pants of her outfit. This behavior so outraged Gordy that he ordered her not to go onstage for the next show and instructed her to take the next plane home to Detroit.
Solo career
Ballard married Thomas Chapman, a former chauffeur for Motown, on February 29, 1968, and signed with ABC Records in March 1968, two weeks after having negotiated her release from Motown on February 22, 1968. Ballard received a one-time payment of $139,804.94 in royalties and earnings from Motown for her six-year tenure with the label.[5]
Billed as "Florence 'Flo' Ballard" and with her husband serving as her manager, Ballard released the singles "It Doesn't Matter How I Say It (It's What I Say That Matters)" and "Love Ain't Love" on ABC Records. The singles failed to chart, and Ballard's album for ABC was shelved. Her musical career thus went into a rapid decline, and the $139,000 was systematically depleted by the Chapmans' management agency. Stipulations in her contract with Motown prohibited Ballard from mentioning, in any promotional materials or noting on the back of her album liner, that she had ever been in the Supremes or recorded for Motown.
Ballard continued her efforts at a solo career. In September of 1968, she performed alongside Bill Cosby at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. That same year, Ballard rode on a float in that city's Bud Billiken Parade with comedian Godfrey Cambridge. On October 20, 1968, she was the featured personality of Detroit's magazine, Detroit and that same month, she gave birth to twin girls, Michelle Chapman and Nicole Chapman, the first two of her three children. She began the new year by performing at one of Richard Nixon's inaugural balls in Washington, DC on January 20, 1969. In 1971, Ballard unsuccessfully sued Motown for additional royalty payments she believed were due.
Decline
In 1973, Ballard gave birth to her third child, Lisa Chapman. Soon after, Thomas Chapman left Ballard and her house was seized by foreclosure, thus, effectively ending her career. Diana Ross heard of Ballard's struggle to save her house from foreclosure and offered financial help, but legal issues surrounding the matter prevented this from going through.[citation needed]
Over the next few years, Ballard laid low from all publicity. In 1974, Mary Wilson, who had maintained a rapport with Ballard over the years, invited Ballard to fly out to California to visit. The Supremes, with lead singer Scherrie Payne, were performing at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Wilson invited Ballard onstage to sing with the group. Ballard joined them on stage, but did not sing: instead, she played the tambourine. Although her onstage appearance brought loud cheers from the crowd, Ballard told Wilson that she had no interest to continue a career in music.
Upon her return to Detroit, Ballard's financial situation declined further. Uninterested in returning to showbusiness, and with three children to support, she applied for welfare. This news and the story of her downward spiral hit the national newspapers.
Comeback and sudden death
Despite most of the songs on the album originally being recorded for ABC Records in 1968, the cover photo is actually a Motown publicity photo from 1965.In 1975, Ballard received a settlement from a slip-and-fall incident in which she had broken her leg after slipping on a patch of ice in Detroit. With the accident settlement money, Ballard purchased a small house on Shaftsbury Avenue in Detroit for herself and her children and made a decision to return to singing. Around this same time, Ballard also reconciled with her estranged husband.
Backed by the female rock group "The Deadly Nightshade," Ballard performed as a part of the Joan Little Defense League at a concert held at Detroit's Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium on June 25, 1975. Following the success of this performance, Ballard received requests for newspaper and television interviews, including an appearance on the local Detroit talk show The David Diles Show.
On February 21, 1976, Ballard entered Mt. Carmel Mercy Hospital, complaining of numbness in her extremities. The next day, she died at 10:05 a.m. of coronary thrombosis, a blood clot in one of her coronary arteries. She was thirty-two years old.
Ballard is buried in Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery located in Warren, Michigan. In the years following Florence Ballard's death, Diana Ross established trust funds in the names of each of Ballard's three children.
Florence Ballard: Forever Faithful!, a biography of Ballard written by Randall Wilson, was printed in 1999. In 2002, The Supreme Florence Ballard, which included all the tracks from the album she recorded for ABC Records in 1968, was released on compact disc by Spectrum, a London-based company.
Another biography was published by Ballard's sister Maxine Ballard in 2007, "The True Story of Florence Ballard." The book comes with a CD containing Flo's last interview, in which she shares her story behind her painful split from the group. The CD also contains a tribute from her sister, Maxine "Precious" Ballard.
A new book, The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard by Peter Benjaminson about Flo was released on April 1, 2008.
References in other media
The 1980 hit "Romeo's Tune", from Mississippian Steve Forbert's album Jackrabbit Slim is "dedicated to the memory of Florence Ballard". She is also mentioned in the Billy Bragg song "King James Version" on his William Bloke album. On his 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead, hip-hop artist Nas mentions the Ballard/Ross rivalry in his song "Blunt Ashes": "When Flo from the Supremes died/Diana Ross cried/Many people said that she was laughing inside."
Dreamgirls, a 1981 Broadway musical, was inspired by the Supremes, and the central character of Effie White, originated by Jennifer Holliday, is said to be modeled after Ballard. That character was played by Jennifer Hudson in the film version of Dreamgirls released in 2006, which featured more overt references to Ballard's life and the Supremes' story than the stage musical. Both Holliday and Hudson's portrayals of Effie have received significant notice: Holliday won the 1982 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance, while Hudson has been awarded a number of critics' awards, including a 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. At the conclusion of her Golden Globe Award acceptance speech, Hudson dedicated her win to Ballard. Hudson later went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the Academy Awards.
Funny Instructions
Some examples of why the human race has probably evolved as far as possible. These are actual instruction labels on consumer goods...
On Sears hairdryer:
Do not use while sleeping.
(Gee, that's the only time I have to work on my hair!)
On a bag of Fritos:
You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.
(The shoplifter special!)
On a bar of Dial soap:
Directions: Use like regular soap.
(and that would be how?)
On some Swann frozen dinners:
Serving suggestion: Defrost.
(But it's 'just' a suggestion!)
On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert: (printed on bottom of the box)
Do not turn upside down.
(Too late! you lose!)
On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding:
Product will be hot after heating.
(Are you sure? Let's experiment.)
On packaging for a Rowenta iron:
Do not iron clothes on body.
(But wouldn't that save more time?)
(Whose body?)
On Boot's Children's cough medicine:
Do not drive car or operate machinery.
(We could do a lot to reduce the construction accidents if we just kept those 5 year olds off those fork lifts.)
On Nytol sleep aid:
Warning: may cause drowsiness.
(One would hope!)
On a Korean kitchen knife:
Warning: keep out of children.
(hmm...something must have gotten lost in the translation...)
On a string of Christmas lights:
For indoor or outdoor use only.
(As opposed to use in outer space.)
On a food processor:
Not to be used for the other use.
(Now I'm curious.)
On Sainsbury's peanuts:
Warning: contains nuts.
(but no peas?)
On an American Airlines packet of nuts:
Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.
(somebody got paid big bucks to write this one...)
On a Swedish chainsaw:
Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands.
(Raise your hand if you've tried this...)
On a child's Superman costume:
Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.
(Oh go ahead! That's right, destroy a universal childhood belief.)
Good morning WA2K.
Funny, Bob, but I want to know more about that food processor.
Faces to match the bios:
and a Good Day to all.
Hey, hawkman, thanks for the great bio's and the very lucid instructions. We all could use a smile today.
And, folks, there's our puppy with a great quartet and a happy face.
Hmmm. I didn't realize that there was a "lost" Supreme. Well, we found her, and here she is, y'all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoCtvziwYR0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TOrtH86_Io
Susan Heyward, as a drunken lush, performing before an audience, in I'll Cry Tomorrow
I remember that one, edgar. She did it herself. Good actress, but according to Bob's bio, a rather cold and anti- social person. Thanks, Texas.
How about an odd one by another Georgia group, y'all, and this is an antithesis to "Shiny Happy People".
R.E.M.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7vs21ZKrKM
That's the first time I recall listening to REM. They are bertter than I would have imagined.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqfhYDJpmcg
There were only a few things available by Nancy Dussault. In this one, she and Robert Goulet do a medley of Oklahoma songs.
Hey, edgar. I love the songs from Oklahoma, especially "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No." Thanks, Texas.
I think it was firefly who inspired this jazz tune, folks. Love the title as well. Mozartin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJkD-H1szwk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS_Ywur1G7E
When the Saints Go Marching In
gives an idea why Jerry Lee Lewis was expelled from church for doing boogie woogie piano, when very young
edgar, that was a great one by Jerry Lee. Thanks, Texas.
This funny video made by a student is worth the listen, y'all, and will be my rock-a-by song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L65SzQw3msA
Goodnight everyone,
From Letty with love and a smile
I love several versions of cotton fields. That song has a long history. I ought to research its origins one day.
