Williams, Vanessa

Williams, Vanessa, the dethroned Miss America who went on to success as an actress and singer; b. Tarrytown, N.Y., March 18, 1963. Vanessa Williams’s career seemed to be over before it began. Crowned the first African-American Miss America, she had to give up her crown when some sexually explicit pictures taken during her rebellious late teens surfaced in Penthouse magazine. However, she made the adage that any publicity is good publicity.

Both of Williams’s parents taught music in elementary schools. She grew up in comfortable Millwood, N.Y. and won a musical scholarship to Syracuse Univ. By her junior year, the funds had dried up. Although she considered herself a liberal and a feminist, as a lark she entered the beauty pageant circuit leading to the Miss America contest. She won, becoming Miss New York and then Miss America.

Several years before that, she had worked as a receptionist for a N.Y. modeling agency. Her boss asked her to pose for some sexually explicit pictures and she agreed. About midway through her reign as Miss America, the pictures were published in Penthouse and the pageant officials asked her to relinquish her crown.

She laid low for a few years, surfacing in Hollywood in 1987 in the film The Pick-Up Artist. The following year, she launched a career as a recording artist with The Right Stuff. An R&B singer in the classic sense of the word, Williams displayed a well-trained, supple voice. The song “Dreaming” rose to #8, sending the album to #38 and gold.

After another three years, she put out The Comfort Zone. The song “Saving the Best for Last” became an even bigger hit, topping the pop chart for five weeks and going gold. The album hit #17 and went double platinum. A year later, “Love Is,” her duet with Brian McKnight from the Beverly Hills 90210 soundtrack album, hit #3.

It was another three years before she put out Sweetest Days. In between, she took on several film roles and made her Broadway debut, taking over the title role in the musical Kiss of the Spider Woman. The title track from Sweetest Days rose to #18, but the album stalled at #57. That year, she had a #4 gold hit with “Color of the Wind,” the theme song from the Disney film Pocahontas.

Although subsequent albums didn’t set the charts on fire, they were full of the same musical exuberance and depth of feeling her hits possessed. Her work as an actress, a balancing act throughout her career, seems to have taken precedent over her musical endeavors.

Discography

The Right Stuff (1988); The Comfort Zone (1991); Sweetest Days (1995); Star Bright (1996); Next (1997); Greatest Hits: The First Ten Years (1998).

—Brock Helander