Everyone at the morning show knew that I was first on the list to produce a Diana Ross interview, and I only had to wait three years to do it. In 1993, Miss Ross was holding a press conference at Planet Hollywood in New York to announce a new boxed set and other events surrounding her fortieth year in show business. My boss, Chris Fahey, assigned me the piece. Not that she really had any choice: Had she given it to someone else, I’d have quit. Or at least cried.
I was too overwhelmed to even try to get anything meaningful out of the experience. When we met in a small room upstairs at Planet Hollywood, I murmured to her that downstairs they were displaying one of her outfits from when she was in the Supremes. I knew this probably wasn’t news to her; I just wanted to say the word “Supremes” to Diana Ross. Also, I hoped she would catch the undertones hidden in my seemingly innocuous statement: “I read Mary Wilson’s book and she said you weren’t nice to her—what’s the real deal?” Diana Ross didn’t address my telepathic question, but she did assure me that the dress downstairs, which she hadn’t seen, was a fake.
“Those dresses are in storage and at Motown. They’re not here,” she declared. Let’s pause a moment and gather ourselves together in the wake of this news that Planet Hollywood may not always be one hundred percent genuine in its star-studdedness.
I was quiet from that point on, just shrank into the background. Still smarting from my Oprah experience, I didn’t even try to get a picture with her. I was too scared. But later that photo—or lack thereof—would haunt me. It would have been proof of our meeting, as much to myself as to anyone else. Without it, I’d be stuck just claiming I’d met her, then struggling to describe how she smelled as proof of our encounter (a bit cocoa-buttery with a top note of exotic flowers?).
The experience was terrifying, thrilling, and also a letdown. You meet someone you’ve spent an eternity thinking about and you expect it to be the culmination of something very significant, the celebration at the top of a mountain. Instead it is two people meeting in some relatively normal moment and situation. And it always happens that one of the people cares a lot more about what’s going on than the other one does.
Next came Joan Collins. Which, let’s be honest, may be the only way to follow Diana Ross. By this point I had already learned that, for the most part, people don’t resemble the characters they play on TV. But I very badly wanted Joan Collins to be Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan. I wanted to be abused by her. Not in a creepy way. I just mean that I wanted to be emasculated and snapped at by one specific character/woman.
At 7:30 on the morning of the interview, I dutifully waited in front of the CBS Broadcast Center for Miss Collins’s limo to arrive. I never, ever waited downstairs or in front of the building for my guests to arrive. That was work for a CBS page or intern, the latter of which I’d already been; producers waited in the Green Room. But I wanted to experience Alexis fully. I got what I wanted.
“Please don’t come anywhere near me with that coffee,” she snapped at me the moment she stepped out of the car. “Someone spilled red wine on me last night and you’re making me very nervous.” She wore a pinstripe suit, her face was fully made up with bright red lips, and she wore a wig that was Curly Alexis Perfection. What was not to love?
“The limo was late. And hot as a sauna! And the driver did not know where he was going! He thought we had some sort of radio interview. Do I look like I’m on my way to a radio interview?” She looked around, though I was right in front of her. “Who do I follow? Where are we going?”
Thank you, Ma’am, may I have some more! I was ecstatic. This was exactly what I’d wanted. For just a moment that morning, I was one of Alexis’s slacks-wearing male assistants at ColbyCo.
“Follow me, please, Miss Collins,” I happily whimpered. “We’re going to the second floor.”
“We are very prompt people,” she lectured. “We are not late. Who is interviewing me? We’re not showing the exercise video. I only want to discuss my book. Now, is there a wardrobe mistress? Where is she?”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I might’ve had a boner by the time she said wardrobe mistress.
“I need a safety pin!” she barked. I found her one in the makeup room, thank the lord. Momentarily.
“No! That one is far too large. I need a small one for this blouse. If you’ll find a wardrobe mistress I am quite sure she’ll have the right one!” She turned to her publicist. “I thought Live at Five was horrible yesterday. This ‘Matt’ was supposedly interviewing me, but the woman kept chiming in and interrupting and I was saying, ‘Exactly who is doing this interview?’”
The interview was with Harry Smith, and it ended up fine. Collins was charming and chirpy, but nowhere near as entertaining as she’d been backstage. I went for it and got a quick photo with her on her way out, though I knew it wasn’t going to be any good right after it was taken (sometimes you can just tell). I didn’t dare risk suggesting we try it again. Years later I got to know Joan Collins socially and found her to be disarming and totally charming, with a great sense of humor about herself and the world.
I’ll tell you about one other
