Williams, Vanessa L. 1963–
Vanessa L. Williams 1963–
Vocalist, songwriter, actress
Laid Foundations for a Musical Career
Many performers must overcome staggering odds to achieve fame. In Vanessa Williams’s case, those odds were compounded by scandal and deep embarrassment. A recording artist and film star with two gold records to her credit, Williams was the first African American female to be elected Miss America—and the first to relinquish her crown after a magazine published nude photographs of her. The road back to respectability has been a long one for Williams, but her talents as a singer and dancer—precisely those that won her the 1983 Miss America title—have enabled her to establish a successful career.
Ebony correspondent Lynn Norment wrote of Vanessa Williams: “The entertainer has not let obstacles defer her dreams so far, and it is doubtful that they will encumber her in the future.” Indeed, the biggest obstacles are probably behind Williams. The singer and actress observed in Ebony that being crowned Miss America—considered the honor of a lifetime by much of Middle America—was for her a stumbling block that almost ruined her chances for work in show business. “I think being Miss America was a major detour to what I wanted to do professionally,” she said. “If [producers] I think you are Miss America, they think you are an airhead … a bimbo.”
In Williams’ case, nothing could be further from the truth. Even before the scandal that ended her Miss America reign, she was known as one of the most hardworking and outspoken Miss Americas. She refused to be pegged as a symbol because she was black. She freely voiced her opinions on abortion, government policies, and race relations and presented herself as an articulate woman with well-defined goals for a career as an entertainer. “My parents really taught me that there are no limitations, that you can do anything you want,” Williams told an Ebony correspondent. “I recall my mother telling me that just because you are Black, you are going to have to work 100 percent more than everyone else just to be considered equal. That is unfair, but it is the reality of the situation.”
Vanessa Williams was born on March 18, 1963, in the Bronx, New York. Both of her parents had college educations and considerable musical talent. When Williams was just one year old, the family moved to Millwood, New York, an upscale community some 30
At a Glance…
Born March 18, 1963, in New York, NY; daughter of Milton (a music teacher) and Helen (a music teacher) Williams; married Ramon Hervey II (a publicist) January 2, 1987, divorced 1997; children: Melanie Lynne, Jillian Kristin, Devin. Education: Attended Syracuse University, 1981-83.
Career: Actress, singer, and songwriter. Elected Miss America, September 14, 1983; relinquished crown, July 23, 1984; film appearances include The Pick Up Artist, 1987, Under the Gun, 1989, Skin Deep, 1989, Another You, 1990, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, 1992, Eraser, 1996, Soul Food, 1997, Shut Up and Dance, 1998, and Hoodlum, 1998; television appearances include The Sex Tapes (film), 1989, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, 1992, The Jacksons: An American Dream, 1992, Bye Bye Birdie, 1995, and The Odyssey, 1997; Broadway appearance in The Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1994; released first album, The Right Stuff, 1988.
Selected awards: Named best new female recording artist, National Association for the Advancement Colored People (NAACP), 1988; ten Grammy Award nominations for The Right Stuff (gold), The Comfort Zone (platinum), The Sweetest Day, Next, and the song “Colors of the Wind” from Disney’s Pocahontas; George Arents Pioneer Medal (alumni award), Syracuse University.
Addresses: Agent —-William Morris Agency, Inc., 1325 Ave. of the Americas F115, New York, NY 10019. Record company— Polygram Records, Worldwide Plaza, 825 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10019.
miles north of Manhattan. There both parents worked as public school music teachers. According to Elizabeth Kaye in Rolling Stone, Williams “was the only black child in her school until she was seven. When she was six, another child called her a ‘nigger.’ She didn’t know what it was. Her mother began to teach her about her heritage, using black-history flashcards that detailed the achievements of [Underground Railroad conductor] Harriet Tubman, [former slave and abolitionist] Frederick Douglass. Soon she had black-pride posters in her bedroom. She decided that she wanted to be the first black Rockette.”
Laid Foundations for a Musical Career
By the time Williams turned ten she had immersed herself in music and dance. She took French horn, piano, and violin lessons, studied classical and jazz dance, and appeared in numerous school plays. Kaye noted that when Williams performed, “her father was invariably the first to start applauding and the last to stop. Her mother was more circumspect. ‘Nice job, ‘Ness,’ she would say.” Williams entered high school as a highly popular, if somewhat rebellious, student. Her interests continued to be theater and music, and she graduated from high school with a prestigious Presidential Scholarship for Drama. Although she was one of only 12 students accepted into the Carnegie Mellon University theater arts program in Pittsburgh, she decided to stay closer to home and attend Syracuse University.
During the summer after her freshman year at Syracuse, Williams returned to Millwood. She took a job as a receptionist and makeup artist for local photographer Tom Chiapel. Chiapel did nude photography with young women, and Williams-who was 19 at the time-became curious about the process. “I had worked there for a month and a half when Tom Chiapel mentioned several times that he’d like to shoot me in the nude,” Williams recalled in People. “He assured me that none of the photographs would ever leave the studio. He assured me.” Williams did one nude session by herself and another in silhouette lighting with a second female model. Later that summer, on a visit to New York City, she did a third session with a Manhattan photographer. She was so distressed by the nature of that session-which involved leather gear and highly provocative shots—that she asked for the negatives and thought they had been destroyed.
At summer’s end Williams returned to Syracuse, where she continued to excel in theater and music. She was appearing in a college musical when she was approached by the director of the Miss Greater Syracuse pageant, one of the steps toward the Miss America contest. Williams was not enthusiastic about entering a beauty pageant, but her parents convinced her to do it. She won Miss Greater Syracuse handily and went on to be crowned Miss New York in 1983.
No black woman had ever been crowned Miss America before. If the pageant favored a certain type, it was usually the blue-eyed, blonde southern woman. Williams pointed out in GQ that the New York Daily News ran a story saying no black woman would ever win the Miss America title. “I knew I had the talent and brains,” she said. “I just didn’t feel comfortable in front of all those people in a swimsuit. I never thought I’d win. I mean, I was pro-choice and pro-ERA, not ‘Little Miss Seawall’ at the age of 5. The southern girls said I’d never win because I didn’t fit the profile. They said it was all in the breeding.”
A New Breed of Miss America
On September 14, 1983, just six months after entering her first beauty pageant, Vanessa Williams was crowned Miss America. Her closest competitor, Suzette Charles, was also black. Williams won the pageant by singing a torchy rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again” and impressed the judges with her honest and witty answers to their questions. Her parents and her entire hometown rejoiced as she won a $25,000 scholarship and the potential of earning many times that much for personal appearances and product endorsements.
Williams embarked on a hectic tour in keeping with her duties as Miss America. Because she was black, she came under unusual scrutiny from the press and public. As a People correspondent put it, “Vanessa Williams was perceived not simply as Miss America but as an emblem of social change-not Miss America at all, in that sense, but Miss New America, embodiment of a kind of collective national redemption.” Not surprisingly, Williams rebelled against such symbolism, pointing out that she had never felt discriminated against while growing up and that she did not feel race was an issue in her selection. “People are reading too much into it,” she remarked in People.
The outspoken but poised Miss America was nearing the end of her reign in July of 1984 when the scandal broke. The provocative photographs Chiapel had taken of her with another woman-the ones she insists she never signed for release-found their way into the pages of Penthouse magazine. After glimpsing the pictures, the shocked Miss America pageant board of directors asked Williams to resign.
Hit Rock Bottom
A weeping Williams consulted with her family, her attorney, and a public relations man-Ramon Hervey II--who was called in to help allay the damage. Within 72 hours of the revelation that the photographs would be published, Williams called a press conference and stepped down with dignity and dry eyes. Her losses were immense. Although pageant officials said she could keep the scholarship money, she was dropped from several major product endorsements worth an estimated $2 million. She was also barred from appearing at the 1984 Miss America pageant and was dropped from a Bob Hope television special. Williams confided in People: “I feel as if I were just a sacrificial lamb. The past just came up and kicked me. I felt betrayed and violated like I had been raped.… I think this would have to be the worst thing that has happened in my life. But I can’t go anyplace but up. I’ve hit rock bottom.”
Williams had to deny in print that she was a lesbian. She was hounded by obscene telephone calls at home and taunted on the streets. Movie scripts came pouring in for her, but all of them featured excessive nudity and near-pornography. On the other hand, as Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione himself observed, the photographs gained Williams media exposure that eluded many former Miss Americas.
Williams may have earned a spot in the public eye, but she was hardly the toast of Hollywood. Ebony’s Norment wrote: “The following years were exceptionally trying for the young woman. After the furor over her giving up the Miss America crown subsided, Vanessa continued to pursue her dream of a show business career. She knocked on doors that wouldn’t open. She auditioned for parts but never got called back. She met with record company executives, but nobody took her seriously.”
Nobody, that is, except Ramon Hervey II, who became Williams’ manager in 1985 and her husband in 1987, although the couple divorced in 1997. Hervey helped Williams to choose film roles that would not further tarnish her image, such as the 1987 movie The Pick Up Artist. He also paved the way for a recording contract with PolyGram’s Wing Records division, a rhythm and blues subsidiary. “There’s no way [Vanessa] would have been taken seriously as an actress in Hollywood,” Hervey conceded in GQ. “We decided it would be better to concentrate on her musical talents, which we could control. We made a conscious effort to build a base in the black community with a rhythm-and-blues album. If Vanessa didn’t succeed in black music first, then she’d never succeed. We had to convince the black media to give Vanessa a chance to become a whole person again.”
Williams’ first album, The Right Stuff, was released in 1988. The album went gold in sales and placed three singles in the Top Ten on the rhythm and blues music charts. Williams helped to make the work a hit by appearing in high-energy music videos and by touring the United States and Europe for live shows. Her efforts won her the best new female recording artist award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1988. She was also nominated for three Grammy awards in the rhythm and blues category. GQ contributor Pat Jordan declared: “For the first time in years, the name ‘Vanessa Williams’ became synonymous not with scandal but with success and a kind of relentless courage. Her life was no longer defined solely by a single aberration from her past.”
“Success Is the Best Revenge”
Williams followed her hit debut album with another well-received work, 1991’s The Comfort Zone, which eventually went multi-platinum. The LP yielded her first Number One single, “Save the Best for Last,” a song co-written by Williams and Wendy Waldman. “Save the Best for Last” stayed at Number One on the pop, rhythm and blues, and adult contemporary charts for five weeks, even as Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time” failed to make a showing. Superstar recording artist Luther Vandross told an Entertainment Weekly correspondent: “I couldn’t be more thrilled about what’s happening for [Vanessa] right now. The way she looks, the way she sings, that inexplicable something called charisma all work in her favor.”
Williams has also been offered parts in such respectable movies as Another You, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Stompin’ at the Savoy, Under the Gun, Skin Deep, and The Jacksons: An American Dream. In between recording sessions, tours, and film work, she and Hervey managed to have three children, Melanie, Jillian, and Devin. Asked in Ebony how she could find time for her various projects and the demands of child rearing, she explained: “Black women have been doing this forever. It is really not a question of how you can do it. It needs to be done, and you do it.… There are so many single family households, and Black women have to be strong to keep their families together. Being a Black woman, I think that is one of the roles, the strengths you just acquire. I think we are a strong people.”
Williams told a People correspondent that she knows some Americans will always remember the Penthouse pictures, and she knows she will have to explain them to her children some day. “The incident was a part of my life that was pretty devastating,” she confessed. “But in the context of my whole life, I got over it.” The versatile performer added in Ebony, “I’m not dwelling on [the past] now. I’m just moving on, for there is nothing I can do to change that, so I just have to deal with it and move on.… If situations arose where I could get revenge, I absolutely would. But at this point, success is the best revenge.”
And it would appear that her revenge is going to continue. Recently, Williams has accepted roles in the TV movie The Odyssey, 1997, as well as the films Eraser, 1996, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Soul Food, 1997, Hoodlum, with Laurence Fishburne, 1997, and Shut Up & Dance, 1998. She also, in 1994, acted in the Broadway musical, The Kiss of the Spider Woman. She has made several TV appearances including The Redd Foxx Show, Live! Dick Clark Presents, Live from the House of Blues, VH-1’s The Soul of VH-1, which Williams hosted each week in 1991, Bye Bye Birdie in 1995 opposite Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander, along with her many appearances in specials and award shows.
In her spare time, that not devoted to her acting career or her children, Williams has managed to put out two more albums, The Sweetest Days, which went platinum, Next, and a Christmas album, Star Bright, as well as singing “Colors of the Wind” on Disney’s Pocahontas soundtrack. These, along with her previous works, have raised her to a total of ten Grammy Award nominations. It would appear that Vanessa Williams is here to stay.
Selected discography
The Right Stuff, Wing, 1988.
The Comfort Zone, Wing, 1991.
The Sweetest Days, Polygram, 1994.
Star Bright (Christmas album), Polygram, 1996.
Next, Polygram, 1997.
Selected filmography
The Pick Up Artist, 1987.
Skin Deep, 1989.
Another You, 1990.
Bye Bye Birdie, 1995.
Eraser, 1996.
The Odyssey, 1997.
Soul Food, 1997.
Shut Up & Dance, 1998.
Hoodlum, 1998.
Sources
Books
African American Biographies, pp. 454-455.
Contemporary Musicians, Volume 10, pp. 258-261.
Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Culture, pp. 46-47.
Periodicals
Ebony, April 1987; December 1988; April 1990; October 1997.
Entertainment Weekly, April 24, 1992.
GQ, June 1990.
Jet, September 16, 1991; February 3, 1992.
Newsweek, August 6, 1984.
Oakland Press (Oakland County, MI), June 14, 1992.
People, October 3, 1983; December 26, 1983-January 2, 1984; August 6, 1984; September 10, 1984; December 24-31, 1984; January 30, 1989.
Rolling Stone, January 31, 1985; April 16, 1992; April 30, 1992; May 14, 1992.
Time, August 6, 1984.
Other
Additional information for this profile was obtained from the IAC Insite website, specifically People Weekly, October 20, 1997 p. 95, Ebony, October 1997 p. 168, Jet, September 29, 1997 p. 58, Jet, September 1, 1997 p. 32, Entertainment Weekly, May 29, 1992 p. 16. http://iac-insite.com/cgLappl.cgi…K8=ON&ViewItems=View+Checked+Items
—A. J. Johnson and Catherine V. Donaldson
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Williams, Vanessa L. 1963–