Diana Ross

Diana Ross Bio

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross (born 26 March 1944) is an American singer and actress widely known as the “Queen of Motown.” She first rose to international fame as the lead singer of the Supremes, Motown’s most successful act of the 1960s, before launching a celebrated solo career in 1970. Ross has recorded multiple chart-topping singles including “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Touch Me in the Morning,” and “Endless Love,” and the album Diana produced international hits. Across her career she has sold over 100 million records worldwide and received numerous honors, including Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is also an Academy Award-nominated actress for her debut film role in Lady Sings the Blues.

Early Life and Background

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross was born on 26 March 1944 in Detroit, Michigan, the second of six children of Fred Ross Sr. and Ernestine Moten. Her mother named her Diane, but a clerk mistakenly entered “Diana” on her birth certificate, a spelling she later adopted. As a child, Ross lived near Smokey Robinson in Detroit and sang in the Bessemer Baptist Church of Bessemer, Alabama, where she spent extended periods with her maternal grandfather, Pastor William Moten, while her mother battled tuberculosis.

Ross attended Cass Technical High School, a college-preparatory magnet school in downtown Detroit, where she studied fashion design, millinery, and cosmetology and participated in extracurricular activities. Her original aspiration was to become a fashion designer, and she took modeling classes and worked as the first African-American bus girl at Hudson’s downtown Detroit store. She graduated from Cass Tech in January 1962 with a strong creative foundation that would shape her later visual identity as a performer.

Path to Music

At fifteen, Ross joined a female vocal group called the Primettes, the sister group to the Primes, alongside Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Betty McGlown. After winning a talent competition in Windsor, Ontario, the group auditioned for Berry Gordy’s Motown label. Gordy initially advised them to finish high school, but the young singers persisted, serving as extras and backup vocalists at Hitsville U.S.A. In January 1961, Gordy signed the renamed Supremes to Motown, and in late 1963 he named Ross the group’s lead singer, setting the stage for her rapid ascent.

With Ross at the forefront, the Supremes scored their first number-one hit with “Where Did Our Love Go” in June 1964. Between August 1964 and May 1967, the group placed ten singles at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Motown’s most successful act of the decade. Ross also famously introduced the Jackson 5 to Motown’s audience in 1969, helping to launch another era-defining act.

Diana Ross Career

Early Career (1959–1970)

Ross began her recording career in 1959 with the Primettes and signed with Motown in 1961 as part of the Supremes. Under Berry Gordy’s guidance, she transformed the group into a polished hit-making machine, with twelve number-one pop singles on the Billboard Hot 100 during her tenure. The Supremes’ catalog, including “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “You Can’t Hurry Love,” later earned induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Billboard named Ross the “Female Entertainer of the Century” in 1976, the same year she received her first lifetime honor at age 32. By the end of the 1960s, she was already recognized as one of the most influential vocalists of her generation and the undisputed face of Motown.

Breakthrough (1970–1985)

Ross released her self-titled debut solo album in May 1970, and her second single, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” became her first solo number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. She quickly transitioned to film, starring as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), a performance that earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The film’s soundtrack reached number one on the Billboard 200, making her the first African-American actress nominated for an Academy Award for a debut film performance.

She went on to star in Mahogany (1975), The Wiz (1978), and the television films Out of Darkness (1994) and Double Platinum (1999), while continuing to release chart-topping music. Between 1970 and 1985, Ross scored six Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, including “Touch Me in the Morning,” “Theme from Mahogany,” “Love Hangover,” “Upside Down,” and “Endless Love,” her duet with Lionel Richie. She also received a Special Tony Award in 1977 for her Broadway engagement, cementing her crossover success across stage, screen, and recording.

Notable Works and Milestones

Ross’s signature solo album, Diana (1980), produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, included the hits “Upside Down” and “I’m Coming Out.” She has earned 18 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 across her career, including her work as the only female artist to top the chart as a solo artist, as part of a trio, and as part of a duet. Ross has also sold over 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists in history.

Diana Ross Award Nominations

Between 1971 and 2022, Diana Ross received thirteen individual Grammy Award nominations without a competitive win, plus two additional nominations as a member of the Supremes in 1965 and 1966. Her duet with Lionel Richie, “Endless Love,” earned a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year in 1982. Her 2021 album Thank You received a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, her first competitive nomination since 1983. She has also received multiple Golden Globe nominations, including for her role in Out of Darkness (1994), as well as Emmy nominations for her television specials.

Diana Ross Awards Won

Diana Ross has received numerous lifetime and special honors across her career. She won a Golden Globe Award for her debut performance in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), a Special Tony Award in 1977, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 as a member of the Supremes. She was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and again in 2023 (the latter as a member of the Supremes), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. She also received seven American Music Awards between 1974 and 1983, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1982, the American Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, and a second Walk of Fame star for the Supremes in 1994.

Diana Ross Family

Diana Ross was the second of six children born to Fred Ross Sr. and Ernestine Moten. She has two sisters, Barbara (the writer and educator Barbara Ross-Lee) and Rita, and three brothers: Arthur, Fred Jr., and Wilbert. Her family originally lived on Belmont Street in Detroit, near Smokey Robinson, before relocating to the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects in 1958. Ross was raised in the Baptist faith and has spoken fondly of her maternal grandfather, Pastor William Moten, whose Bessemer Baptist Church nurtured her earliest performances.

Personal Life

Ross has been married twice and has five children. She became involved with Motown CEO Berry Gordy in 1965, a relationship that produced her eldest daughter, Rhonda Suzanne Silberstein, born in August 1971. Two months into her pregnancy, Ross married music executive Robert Ellis Silberstein, with whom she had two more daughters: Tracee Joy Silberstein (Tracee Ellis Ross), born in 1972, and Chudney Lane Silberstein, born in 1975. The couple divorced in 1977.

Ross dated KISS bassist Gene Simmons from 1980 to 1983 before marrying Norwegian shipping magnate Arne Næss Jr. in 1986. They had two sons together, Ross Arne (born 1987) and Evan Olav (born 1988), and divorced in 2000. Næss died in a South African mountain-climbing accident in 2004. Ross has described him as the love of her life. She resides in Greenwich, Connecticut, and remains close with her children and seven grandchildren.