Diana Ross

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross was born on March 26, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan, the second of six children born to Ernestine and Fred Ross Sr. Her birth certificate recorded her name as Diana, though her family and Detroit friends called her Diane throughout her life. She grew up in the North End section of Detroit with two sisters, Barbara and Rita, and three brothers, Arthur, Fred Jr., and Wilbert, in a household that was Baptist in faith. Her neighbor on Belmont Street was Smokey Robinson. When Ross was seven, her mother contracted tuberculosis and the children were sent to live with their maternal grandparents in Bessemer, Alabama, returning to Detroit after their mother recovered. On her fourteenth birthday in 1958, the family moved to the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects on St. Antoine Street.

Ross attended Cass Technical High School in downtown Detroit, where she pursued studies in clothing design, millinery, pattern making, and tailoring, with ambitions of becoming a fashion designer. She also took modeling and cosmetology classes outside of school hours and participated in the school's swim team. In 1960, she was hired by Hudson's downtown Detroit store as its first African-American bus girl, and she supplemented her income by providing hairdressing services to neighbors. She graduated from Cass Tech in January 1962.

At fifteen, Ross joined the Primettes, a vocal group that included Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Betty McGlown. After the group won a talent competition in Windsor, Ontario in 1960, they were invited to audition for Tamla Records. Berry Gordy, who would later sign them to Motown, first encountered Ross's voice when he heard her singing "There Goes My Baby" and advised the group to finish high school before pursuing a recording contract. The group spent time at Gordy's Hitsville U.S.A. headquarters contributing hand claps and background vocals to recordings, and Ross served the group as its hairstylist, makeup artist, seamstress, and costume designer during those early years. In January 1961, Gordy signed the group under the name the Supremes, a name selected by Florence Ballard from a list of options.

The group became Motown's most successful act of the 1960s and one of the best-selling female groups in recording history. They accumulated twelve number-one pop singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, making them the best-charting female group in history. Between August 1964 and May 1967, Ross, Wilson, and Ballard recorded ten consecutive number-one singles. Ross departed from the Supremes in 1970 and launched a solo career with the release of her self-titled debut album. Over the following fifteen years, she placed twelve singles in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, six of which reached number one: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Touch Me in the Morning," "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)," "Love Hangover," "Upside Down," and "Endless Love." At the time, this made her the female solo act with the most number-one songs in the United States. Between 1964 and 1981, Ross sang on eighteen number-one singles in the United States. Since beginning her solo career in 1970, she has sold over 100 million records worldwide.

Between 1972 and 1980, Ross released four top-ten albums, with Diana being her most successful studio record. The soundtrack to the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues became her only solo album to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. She also achieved international recognition with singles including "I'm Coming Out," "Chain Reaction," "If We Hold on Together," and "When You Tell Me That You Love Me." She recorded a top-75 U.K. hit single for 33 consecutive years, from 1964 through 1996. In 2021, Billboard ranked her the 30th greatest charting artist of all time on the Billboard Hot 100, and her combined credits as a Supreme and solo artist placed her among the top five artists on the chart from 1955 to 2018.

Ross built a parallel career as an actress. Her debut film role was the portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues in 1972, a performance that earned her both a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination, making her the first African-American actress to receive an Academy Award nomination for a debut film performance. She subsequently starred in Mahogany in 1975 and The Wiz in 1978. Her television film work includes Out of Darkness in 1994, for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, and Double Platinum in 1999.

Ross made her Broadway appearance in 1976 with An Evening With Diana Ross, a one-woman show originating from Detroit, Michigan. That same year, Billboard named her the Female Entertainer of the Century. The following year, she received a Special Tony Award in 1977 in recognition of her Broadway work.

Among her other honors, Ross was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 as a member of the Supremes. She holds two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and again in 2023, becoming the first woman to receive that award twice, with the latter awarded to her as a member of the Supremes. In 2016, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.