With their spangly dresses, seductive charm and perfect pop, The Supremes became one of the greatest girl groups the world of music has ever produced.
All three daughters are on the welfare WTF. Not only was her behaviour unreliable, her stage costumes no longer fitted.
Maxine recalls: "We used to go to the Graystone Ballroom to dance.
Like everyone else in the projects, we wanted to be stars.". Maxine recalls: "We were sitting on the porch, in the projects, and Milton Jenkins, the manager of a boy group, The Primes, stopped his car, got out and told us he was looking for a girl group. Flo hid deep-rooted demons and almost from the start there was an unspoken rivalry with Ross, who was always the most ambitious of the three.
Effie sings the showstopping number 'And I'm Telling You That I'm Not Going', in which she pours out her agony. Has anyone heard anything about or seen Florence Ballard's three children, the twins Nicole and Michelle, and their younger sister Lisa. Why they are not working? Two years later they were married. Why should any of us feel bad about three women who chose to live on welfare. If Diana had more private moments with Flo they didn't make her inspirational memoir which avoided almost anything personal about her years in the group outside of making the dig that Mary Wilson is no longer her friend.
In public, Flo was keen to keep up appearances, where possible. ), Forum Policies, Rules, and Terms of Service. EXCLUSIVE - Who stole BBC's forgeries? But Flo, whose strong gospel voice had been praised since childhood, resented the fact that, in theory, she had the better, more powerful sound. Hell if you watch Maury, Jerry,and Montell all day long you not get a red naked dime... and that is my IMO! It could not have been easy being passed around by family members that did not teach them anything. So much to cover here but truthfully Diana & Flo had very little interaction after her dismissal.
For what the film doesn't show is that the real Florence Ballard died in poverty, aged 32, from an alcohol-related illness. She eventually married Milton and they had five children.
In fact, Florence Ballard was found dead in 1976, killed by a heart attack caused by a blood clot in her pulmonary artery. She wanted to be a victim.
I met both Nicole and Michelle years ago in Washington, DC at a Supremes exhibition. The stardom and the wealth, when it came for the sensational girl group by now known as The Supremes, was extraordinary. In the film, Flo is portrayed as Effie (Jennifer Hudson in the film), who first hits trouble when her weight runs out of control, and her behaviour becomes erratic. But hell, good jobs don't really exist today unless you have a ton of degrees. Not to mention, it did not sound like Flo & her husband had a stable life. ". At least it gave some positive closure to the ladies relationship.
Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by SITKOL'76, Oct 20, 2019. As Florence's older sister knows only too well, the bust-up with The Supremes was traumatic and final. "We weren't walking fast enough for her.
"Flo was thrilled when they first made it big," remembers Maxine, "There was a glow in her eyes. • Click here to watch a clip from the movie.
Flo enjoyed social drinking as a teenager and hit the bottle hard when, early on, she was pushed out of the limelight by Ross.
Can’t have been easy for any of them. Because for all the wealth and euphoria on view in Dreamgirls, there is much of the other side of pop stardom that Maxine says should not be forgotten: the complex, sometimes troubled relationship with Diane (as Diana Ross was then known), for example, and the long, hard years of misery that we don't see in the celluloid fantasy. Fake bank statements that convinced Diana's brother his own aide was... Is there life on Mars? I feel for them because it seems they don't know any better. And even that does not guarantee a good job.
It also portrays her as having an affair with Berry Gordy, which Maxine says is untrue. But her tawdry descent into poverty is arguably the most serious omission of all.
Cinema-goers will warm to the final scene, which shows a moving reconciliation between Flo and the other girls. Feb 21, 2015 - Find great deals on eBay for florence ballard.
Maxine has never regretted her decision to stay out, even though she, too, was a talented singer. What is really sad is the girls made it their legacy "welfare".
Maxine says: "She was down and out.
In 1963, Ross was appointed lead singer in her place, with Gordy believing that Diane's higher register and softer, more commercial sound, would play better with white audiences.
The film's mix of urban grit, outright glamour and a star-studded cast - including Beyonce and Eddie Murphy - has already impressed audiences and critics alike, garnering eight Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe. He hurt her physically and he hurt her emotionally. I just read on SDF that one of the daughters had brain surgery several years ago and her son is disabled. Despite the many inaccuracies, Maxine believes Florence would have enjoyed the film - precisely because it expresses her own most dearly-held dream.
Florence Ballard was out of The Supremes and the name of the group would change to Diana Ross & The Supremes as Berry finally put his plan in motion to make Diana Ross the superstar diva she eventually became. "My sister was very generous in the good times," says Maxine. How was the money appropriated?
"She told me how hurt she was because she felt that Diane and Mary had turned their backs on her.
The final phone call in early 76 was covered by the OP above. When she left The Supremes and the money stopped coming in, it really messed up her head.". She maintained that all was well between her and the other girls and claimed that stories about hair-pulling fights with Ross were wrong. And she reveals for the first time that her sister had been raped as a teenager, an episode that blighted the rest of her life. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, "He asked, "Do you girls sing?"
The alcohol compounded the weight problem, which was easily visible to the audiences. "Back in the projects in the early days, we would all start off walking down the street together, but Diane would always end up way ahead of us. They probably got some kind of jobs to keep them in hair weave and jewelry cuz welfare don't pay that much nowadays. "Diane was aggressive," explains Maxine. The film ends in true, sugar-coated Hollywood style: Effie rejoins the group, the differences are forgiven, and all is well. They were not taught to get up and get a damn job.
Now aged 64, just a year older than Flo would have been, Maxine Ballard Jenkins, a teacher, has rarely spoken about her sister's flirtation with stardom or her dramatic decline. or debate this issue live on our message boards. Worse was to follow. There is a dramatic moment when, dressed in a gold suit with a mink collar, Effie comes to rehearsal late to find she has been replaced by another girl singer. She felt that they should have stood up for her more and she was angry.". Maxine says: "At the beginning, Flo thought Berry was a father figure and she trusted him. Somehow, she also found the time to win two degrees at the University of Detroit. This isn't fair. They were both flown into DC from Detroit to make an appearance at the exhibit. People generally like to paint Diana Ross as some kind of Disney witch, which always pees me right off.
Not that Flo or Maxine, the eighth and ninth out of 15 children born to a General Motors worker Jessie and his wife Lurlee, were unhappy with their lot.
It tells the story of how three teenage black girls escape the 'projects' or housing estates of riot-torn Detroit and forge a remarkable career with the Motown record label, clocking up ten No1 singles in just three years. All of a sudden Flo's sister says that Diane quietly sent them checks throughout the years. Brilliantly managed by Berry Gordy, the Motown entrepreneur who also discovered the Jackson Five, the group's hits started mounting up. But then he betrayed her.". Shop with confidence. And it is the tragedy of "Flo", the girl with the golden voice, but who was later fired from the group, that provides the real drama of Dreamgirls.
In October 1968, Ballard gave birth to twin girls Michelle and Nicole Chapman.