One Monday night he dressed three mannequins in red dresses. Joel was doing the display windows at Henri Bendel at the time. I said to Joel: “We have to go out to Hollywood and make a movie about these girls who are singing in the background.” We immediately hit it off because we both were in love with R & B, soul, and the movies. It turned out Joel and I both wanted to go to Hollywood to make movies. The soundtrack in the background was ’70s Supremes-“Up the Ladder to the Roof,” “Stoned Love,” and “Nathan Jones” playing over and over all afternoon. One hot July morning in 1971, at Fire Island Pines, N.Y., I was introduced to Joel Schumacher. The music Gordy created at Hitsville is the greatest cultural export the U.S. but most especially Diana Ross and the Supremes. Stevie Wonder, Aretha, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Eddie Kendricks, the Temptations, David and Jimmy Ruffin, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, Mary Wells, Martha and the Vandellas, and Gladys Knight and the Pips. I am stuck in the R & B world of the late 1960s. They wrote two of the greatest songs in the R & B lexicon: “You’re All I Need To Get By,” sung by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” popularized by the ineffable Diana Ross. Berry Gordy was my idol, and Ashford and Simpson were my favorite songwriters. I was in love with the Motown sound in the ’60s. Howard Rosenman, who conceived and produced the original film, talks about how the Motown-inspired flick came to the screen in 1976-and Whitney’s ‘wonderful’ performance in the new version. I said ‘Why can’t I do all of it?’ In that time they said ‘make up your mind.’ So my career went back and forth between the music scene and what few acting roles they were offering Black folks.Whitney's final performance is in the remake of the 1976 cult film, which is set for an August release. They didn’t know if I was a singer, writer, musician or actor. I was Alicia Keys before Alicia Keys but there wasn’t a place for me at the time in the industry. I thought I’d make it as a musician like Alicia Keys. Plus I started out in the music industry and that was always my first love. Nobody came to me with projects as strong as the Sparkle character. The only roles I was offered is girlfriends and wives. Everybody said I would break out, but you can’t break out unless you’re offered decent film roles. So after Sparkle,wasn’t a product of my own doing as much it was a commentary on the state of where Black projects have been since then and still are today. None of us have a real grip on our own lives and our own personalities. First of all people are not fully developed in their early 20’s. LM: I have a whole theory about people that make it or do something really big when they are in their early 20’s. However in a People Magazine interview you stated that after the film’s success you went “wild” and “experimented with coke for a year.” Do you attribute that period with affecting the direction of your career? They didn’t need us hanging around their set.ĮBONY: After Sparkle, many pinned you to be the breakout star to reach mainstream success. One of our original producers is doing the remake so it is in very good hands and Salim Akil and Mara Brock Akil are fabulous. But it doesn’t matter to me whether they called or didn’t. LM: Let’s put it this way, if they contacted me I would have been there for them and shown up. EBONY: Would you have liked to have been involved in the project?
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