What is Vanessa Williams REALLY like??

Why doesn't she have a bigger career? She's talented and supposedly every loves her. It's not like she's useless or a cunt. What's her excuse?

She is down to earth and yearns for a normal life, lives in a small New York state city. She wishes to work near there and doesn't leave much for California. She is stunning.

I loved her in Ugly Betty.

A friend of mine has worked with her before and said she was wonderful. I think she has a decent career..a lot of actresses her age would kill to be as successful.

And she deserved an Emmy for Ugly Betty.

She is truly a beautiful woman. Stunning and has a great voice. She has excellent timing when she does comedic roles.

Yaaas! She was the shit on UB! Never loved an antagonist before as much as I did on that show.

Didn't she sing that Pocahontas song? She has a lovely voice.

Bitch!

"Colors of the Wind" Yes, she sang it. Pretty song.

Vanessa works on the stage frequently. She was a replacement in After Midnight and was WONDERFUL. They even re-recorded Spiderwoman for her; although Chita is the definitive Aurora, Vanessa's recording is a lot of fun- and a lot sexier! She was in the Encores St. Louis Woman and did well for herself there too.

I've had friends work with her on stage and they all rave about her. I think she enjoys her life and is always welcome back on the New York stage.

Michael Urie, her UB costar (and proud gay), can't say enough nice things about her. But that could just be typical Hollywood ass kissing.

I mean, look at her. Why would she be nice?

My friend went to High School with her. She said she was very pretty and a drama-rama but had bad skin. So she was kind of quiet and humble but well liked. It probably grounded her. Acne can do that to someone.

A REAL BITCH.

Is she any relation to Van Williams?

Her brother is Krazee Eyez Killa.

Didn't they have a fucked up childhood? She's close to her mother so was her father a monster?

She came to San Francisco a couple of years ago and was interviewed and sang some Broadway tunes. I found her to be very candid and down to earth and with a great sense of humor. As far as singing, she has an amazing voice with great control - perfect for the stage. She was a musical theater major in college, and her dream was to do Broadway one day.

I love Vanessa.

I think how she handled herself after the Miss America scandal was brave and smart - she rebuilt herself. She really does have a great voice. I preferred her more uptempo music ("The Right Stuff") and R&B ("Dreamin') before she fell into AC mode (though her jazzy Christmas album is terrific).

She's also a very good actress. Can't say enough about how good she was in Ugly Betty. Born to play that role.

I loved that she was able to build a successful career in music, film, television and Broadway after the Miss America. She got the ultimate revenge: living well instead of being bitter.

I rarely hear anything negative about her.

Gorgeous woman, with a talent to match her beauty.

She loves gay men. When she does come to LA she makes sure to contact her gay friends and have a dinner.

One of my friends worked on Ugly Betty with her and he gets the dinner invite when she comes to town. He was also invited to her wedding. Nice lady.

Shoulda been a bigger hit

R20, that album went platinum and got a couple of Grammy noms.... I think it did more than okay.

She was wonderful in the TV version of "Bye, Bye, Birdie".

Vanessa is the underdog we all love. She came out of that Miss America scandal smelling like a rose because she's a bundle of talent. The pageant ultimately apologized to her very publicly.

I do wish she do more on stage. She played the witch in the Into the Woods revival and was in a Sondheim review.

She should be on another TV series. She does bitchy but beautiful villain the best

"It made me the fighter I am today"

I worked with her when she performed with our symphony. She was delightful. Very friendly, did the publicity I asked her to do, professional, cooperative, no drama. And when she performed, her show was wonderful; great voice. Vanessa Williams is a class act. Loved her. And I work with a lot of performers. Vanessa is among the best

She *is* on a new tv show--DAYTIME DIVAS on VH1. It's not great, but it's a pleasant summer diversion and Vanessa is, of course, wonderful on it.

I put "The Right Stuff" on a party playlist the other night and everyone "of a certain age" went crazy and danced. Blast from the past!

One of my favorites by her below. It made the Hot 100, but barely. It should have been a much bigger hit!

Sometimes the snow comes down in June. Sometimes the sun goes round the moon.

I've always thought that she was a real trouper since I read that the woman that she did the nude pictorial with was having a lot of problems during the shoot because she had eaten an 'off' burrito from Taco Bell not long before the shoot started.

Labia licker

The "Right Stuff" is an awesome and underrated song. Here she is looking adorable singing at the Apollo. This was probably one of her first live performances as she was rebuilding her career.

I grew up in Westchester not far from her and although I've never met her I've known more than one person who has. I'll chime in and say even at the peak of her fame she was down to earth and tried to live a normal suburban life and doesn't seem to have an ounce of diva in her. She's been married 3 times so maybe that's where her skeletons are?

Worked years ago with a Card-Carrying-Cunt who went to Syracuse with Vanessa. Her vocal and demonstrative disdain for Vanessa "and the damage her scandal did to Syracuse's reputation" was quite something to see.

Now, whenever I see anything about Vanessa, it's hard not to remember said cunt and her venom (not to mention her awful capped teeth).

Sometimes, REAL TALENT WINS. And if you haven't seen it, watch Vanessa in her Miss America vocal performance. "Happy Days Are Here Again" has never sounded better.

(And say what you will of Arnold, his gracious (and considering the times, gutsy) offer to Vanessa to co-star with him in a movie helped to put her on her way after the debacle. Maria has spoken of this incident--and also very kindly of Vanessa.)

Any pics of her teen daughter? I have sympathy for the daughters of bombshells like Billy Joel's homely daughter who tried suicide.

R33. I recall reading a review of the movie she did with Arnold (can't recall its name). It said something like "Hollywood needs to wake up and make more movies with Williams! They'll make millions!"

Her career is the greatest comeback story of the century.

I am a fan. She is talented and beautiful.

Here's her talent performance while competing for the Miss America crown. Loved her then, love her still.

Thank you, r38!

Uh no R15. Her father is dead but the family has always been very close. Both parents were public school music teachers and I think her dad was a school principal.

Vanessa's mother said a lot of the parents at the miss America pageant resented them when they found out that Vanessa had only been in two other pageants before miss America (her local and state pageants) and that they had spent almost no money on pageant prep.

Vanessa's daughter is the super-foxy Jillian Hervey. Lead singer of Lion Babe.

I met her at a friend's home. She's very beautiful in person, but what I remember best is her being gracious and subtly funny. I was also surprised when, several weeks later, I ran into her while shopping and she called me by name.

Eraser is a forgettable film

My favorite. i cant listen without getting teary! It reminds me so much of my life in the 90s...

Does her pussy stink?

This thread makes me unaccountably happy.

Let's get teary together, R44!

Spider Woman

Love all these stories about how nice she is. Maybe the reason she is so good at playing a bitch is that she purposely tries to not be one.

I think she's great. Anymore personal encounters with Vanessa?

Vanessa is wonderful of course, but for me the real star of "Ugly Betty" was Ana Ortiz. Phenomenal actress.

Before and after.

One of the best nose jobs in the history of Hollywood.

This thread is almost as rosy and positive as the Jan Hooks memorial one. You're slipping, DL.

She even has a cute twinky son who is 24. Vanessa can do no wrong!

I had no idea she had so many kids.

I love that she not only survived that scandal but flourished. Could have been a footnote on some Trivial Pursuit board but no... she did well.

Years and years ago, someone made a "Things I Learned on DL" list. One of the entries was something like "Vanessa Williams was our greatest Miss America."

Correct.

Is she still married? She never talks about her most recent husband anymore and hasn’t posted a picture of him on IG in like a year.

r58 she was the most high profile

the pageant had pretty much fallen out of pop culture at the time. Her winning as the first black woman brought her enormous attention and revived the pageant. She was everywhere the year of her reign unlike past winners.

It is why the nude photos were such a scandal. She was very very famous so the fall was big news.

I still remember opening the afternoon paper (yes we got an afternoon paper back then) and she was on the cover with the nude photo scandal. I was so shocked.

Running back to you. I purchased this CD in the 90s

I've only ever heard good things about Vanessa Williams from crew members who have worked with her.

The only somewhat bitchy side I've seen was from a Grammy telecast. Vanessa was nominated for "Best R&B Vocal, Female" for "Running Back To You". The other nominees were Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Lisa Fischer. Now Vanessa, although a good singer, was definitely the lightweight in the category when compared to those vocal powerhouses. I remember it well: Lisa Fischer's name was announced, the cameras caught her reaction, and then panned to Williams, the next nominee. You could see Vanessa rolling her eyes on camera, probably at Lisa Fischer.

Btw Fischer ended up winning. She tied with LaBelle for the award.

Didn't she get fired after a single season of Melrose Place?

She was also in DL fave trainwreck Desperate Housewives for a season right?

Anyone got her nudes ? The ones that got her stripped of her title.

You're an idiot, R65.

Running Back to You is a great song as is the The Right Stuff. Remember New Kids had a song called the Right Stuff....I was always said Vanessa's Right Stuff was superior.

She once admitted in an intervirw that she would still have sex with ex-husband Rick Fox when he came by to see/pick up their kids.

R28- That lyric was literally running through my head. Love it.

Fun fact: "Girlfriend" was supposed to be Vanessa's first big hit (produced by Babyface and L.A. Reid), but skanky ass Pebbles (who was sleeping with Reid) heard Vanessa in the studio and stole the song from her. Overnight, nobody from LA Face records would return her calls. She was shut out and Pebbles became an R&B sensation. Pebbles is also the one who "managed" TLC via a shady contract. At the height of their fame, the members of TLC were bringing home about 35k per year. Shady!

But Vanessa won out in the end. Look at her amazing career. Pebbles is now a basic bitch "minister" fleecing a small-town church. She's not even a glamorous prophetess like our DL icon Juanita "Jazz Hands" Bynum. Embarrassing!

But as the Bible says "you reap what you sow." Or in Pebbles' case: karma is a bitch!

She has an amazing relationship with ex Rick Fox and they’ve even worked together a few times. I also wonder about the most recent hubby. Not a trace of him on her social media for quite some time. She would make a great Miranda in the Devil Wears Prada musical but it’s too close to her Ugly Betty character.

So many nominations and no wins. Give the girl sumthin'.

I've loved her since her Miss America days. We used to watch all the beauty pageants. My mother had been accepted in a NYC modeling agency when she was 20, but the head of the agency wisely saw my mother would not be able to handle NYC and talked to my grandmother about it. My mother ultimately said no to the offer, but I think a part of her always wondered what her life would have been like if she accepted. So, she was obsessed with beauty pageants and anything to do with the modeling world. My father and I always picked either the winner or first runner-up. I picked Vanessa that year.

When the scandal came out I was only a teenager, but I remember thinking it was much ado about nothing. I remember when she reinvented herself. One of her first roles on TV was in an old show that I liked called Partners in Crime. It was set in San Francisco and starred Lynda Carter and Loni Anderson. Vanessa played a pop star with a crazed stalker in one of the first episodes.

Vanessa had the ultimate revenge of being successful. Her replacement tried acting and had a stint on a soap opera, but she wasn't very good. Vanessa became a star. I'm glad to hear she's as nice as she is beautiful.

In Living Color used to parody music videos. I always liked this one with Kim Wayans playing Vanessa. Kiss my ass, indeed!

‘Save the best for last’ is a VERY cheesy song

DL was where I saw the infamous Penthouse pics for the first time. You bitches are certainly resourceful!

I still remember when she got invited back to Miss America a few years back, and one Lindsey Graham-esque DLer was just completely *appalled* by that.

Even though she was still on the outs with the Miss America Organization at the time, they used "Save The Best For Last" for the evening gown competition in one of their telecasts back in the 90s.

Why on earth did she let go of Rick Foxx? Woof!

My nephew wrote her a letter when she was doing Into the Woods and she very graciously invited him backstage.

She was the guest performer on one of my Atlantis cruises, hung out with all the guys, lovely, warm, beautiful woman

R76 they were a gorgeous couple weren't they?

R70 mostly true, but babyface did try to get the song back for vanessa but pebbles gave la Reid $$$ a Mercedes and probably her pussy so it was futile.

Pebbles can’t sing very well live here she is at the Apollo, had it been amateur night she would’ve been booed offstage

Love Vanessa, always have, always will. Funny how she still has a acting and singing career when we seldom hear from other Miss America alumni. Suzette Charles became a female lounge lizard. The pageant itself has lost its luster and relevance. ‘Nessa is STILL HERE AND THRIVING. Gay men can relate to her because she was shunned for her sexuality in a way and bounced back from scandal.

He cheated on her publicly r76 and the photos ended up in the enquirer. Her first husband cheated on her as well.

R82: that proves that men will cheat for the sake of cheating. I think her first husband passed.

Did she really think a hunky NBA star would never cheat on her?

I read once that they never shared any of their assets - no joint bank accounts or houses in both names - and split every family expense 50/50 down to the penny. Shows a lot of character and good sense on both sides, I think.

I've met her several times, and she is a class act. Friendly, considerate, very down-to-earth. And funny! I think her "realness" is why people love her. She's the more beautiful, more glamorous, more talented version of us, and she shares it rather than throwing it in our faces.

[quote] in an old show that I liked called Partners in Crime. It was set in San Francisco and starred Lynda Carter and Loni Anderson.

Their drag episode was the best.

by all account very nice and talented. Just missing some lightning-in-a-bottle star quality. Always seems like a super talented understudy who's impressive as hell

It's that time of year to watch "A Diva's Christmas Carol" with Vanessa Williams and Kathy Griffin.

The nude photos thing was a laughably big scandal at the time (probably because of the lesbian shots). I admire anyone who can come back from that.

I vaguely remember that she first came back by singing a version of "Happy Days Are Here Again" and everyone was thinking "Damn, the Miss America Reject can really sing!"

[quote] She was also in DL fave trainwreck Desperate Housewives for a season right?

Two seasons, actually. She went right from UB to DH

R89, didn’t she actually sing "Happy Days Are Here Again" in the talent round of the Miss America pageant? I thought her big comeback was a pop/r&b song rather than a standard.

My favorite line from "Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil":

The Lady Chablis : You know what, hun? I told her the same thing. I said if Vanessa Williams can pull one off on the Miss America committee, then her little whoring around in Atlanta, Georgia, was not going to mean anything to a little steering committee in Savannah.

Wilhelmina to Betty: "Come on, girl, I am black, you are Mexican, let's not talk around it like a couple of dull white people!"

Didnt she had her nose fixed?I think it's not that bad before.

Her brother is also an actor; he had a recurring role on "Silicon Valley." 53, never married, no kids. Family?

Is that Gayface Williams?

Gorgeous and talented woman. Seems incredibly kind and down to earth. She wasn't great as The Witch in Into the Woods, but I'm not sure if it was miscasting or misdirecting since pretty much everyone was lousy in that revival. James Lapine loves to suck the humor out of everything. See Katie Finneran as Miss Hannigan in his Annie revival. That casting sounded great on paper and she probably had a great Hannigan in her, but he insisted on undercutting every attempt she made to get some laughs out of the role. You could tell she felt boxed in.

[quote]I also wonder about the most recent hubby. Not a trace of him on her social media for quite some time.

Glad I’m not the only one who has noticed this. He wasn’t even in the Thanksgiving photo.

The ITW revival was a mess. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Vanessa would have been better as the Baker’s Wife. She has the warmth and the voice for it.

r99 is 100% right. Much better idea.

I am so impressed by you dudes right now. I read the posts attached to this thread, and I was pleased to find it so positive and kind. Very nearly all complementing to the subject, I have witnessed a side of DL I thought I'd never see. I love you fuckerz! Well done!

R88, that movie is free on YouTube

Fans should listen to her interview on Seth Rudetsky’s Back to School podcast. She was a badass in high school and her mother sounds like a piece of work.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Yes, imagine that.

She was so good in Soul Food. So many great actors involved in the movie, but she stole it from everyone with this scene here.

Wow, not doubting her acting in "Soul Food," but that wig was not doing her any favors.

R103, thanks for the recommendation. She’s so engaging on that podcast

I know one of the state winners who competed at Miss America with Vanessa Williams, She said Vanessa was sweet, friendly, never complained, never became "competitive". She said everyone knew Vanessa was going to win when she performed her talent in the preliminaries before the final night. The other contestants were thrilled, especially since she made history and they were part of it.

There were always rumors that Suzette Charles, Miss New Jersey was the competitive one. Some even believed she or her family helped get the nude photos leaked.

Charles was a pageant regular who had tried a lot to win. Williams on the other hand was basically spotted in a college musical and asked to compete in the state pageant by officials.

There was a lot of talk before the show that a black woman would win. It is why Williams was basically recruited. The pageant wanted to break that barrier. Williams herself has said that once she got to Atlantic City the feeling was that either she or Charles would win. They were both black and both from big local states.

Charles was criticized for how gleefully she jumped in to replace Williams. She'd been a child actor and has a lot of gripes about missed opportunities. She supposedly was supposed to be in the film Hair singing Frank Mills but it was cut or never filmed something like that.

They were both very talented. Both sang Streisand songs in the pageant (Happy Days... and Charles did Kiss Me in the Rain.) I think Charles probably won the talent but Williams was prettier with her big beautiful eyes (and she was lighter skinned which probably helped.)

Williams' wrote a book detailing all this.

She didn't really understand why she had done the photos until years later with the help of a therapist I guess. She had been molested as a kid by a cousin (female interestingly.)

She feels she was acting out in sexually odd ways as a teen due to the trauma (which is something a lot of victims go through.)

The first set of photos with the other woman were kind of arty and done by a photographer she worked for. The second set that turned up later were much more sleazy. In the book that photo shoot reads like Coco in Fame. A guy in Grand Central Station asked her to model for him. Her boyfriend drove her to his apartment where he took photos and then asked her to do explicit poses. She said she just complied out of some odd sexual trauma. All this while her boyfriend waited in the car. She said she just did it left and got in the car and went home like nothing had happened. She was a very confused young woman due to her abuse.

[quote]She supposedly was supposed to be in the film Hair singing Frank Mills but it was cut or never filmed something like that.

Just before she crowned her successor, Suzette told the host that she was going to be one of the Huxtable daughters (Sondra I'm assuming, who didn't appear until the show was in its third month) on [italic]The Cosby Show[/italic], set to debut a couple weeks later. Obviously that never came to pass.

[Quote] I know one of the state winners who competed at Miss America with Vanessa Williams, She said Vanessa was sweet, friendly, never complained, never became "competitive". She said everyone knew Vanessa was going to win when she performed her talent in the preliminaries before the final night.

According to the podcast referenced above, she never felt she had to be a big competitor because she was so confident in her abilities and training. She worked really hard and was always prepared. That was her way to compete—not to be bitchy to her competition.

[Quote] She didn't really understand why she had done the photos until years later with the help of a therapist I guess.

I also think, when one starts out in modeling or in show biz, you just go along with the flow and do whatever someone tells you. You don’t think something might or might not be appropriate because you trust others too much. It’s only after a while that you catch on and realize you have a say in things and that you have a brand to protect

I've been to her home in Chappaqua; she hosted a BBQ for cast and crew for a show she did on Broadway. Beautiful person, inside and out.

The Penthouse issue that first featured the photos of Vanessa also feature a spread of a model, Traci Lords, who was later revealed to be underage at the time of the shoot. This issue is difficult if not impossible to find for sale as owning it is literally a felony.

So would I be charged with child pron if I buy this R116?

A lot of backstory here.

R113, the best artists tend to not be terribly competitive. They realize that art is subjective and no matter how great you are, you might not always be everyone's taste. It's best to go out there, do your thing, and let the chips fall. They have confidence in their own abilities and let that speak for themselves. You'll never see someone like that demanding more lines for their character or for gunning for the showstopper their co-star has.

Vanessa is a great case about how far you can get in the business by simply being a kind and decent person who doesn't make insane diva demands. Yes, she's beautiful and talented, but so are many others who never made it as far. The fact that she's still working is probably due to the fact that she appears to be a pleasant, kind person.

That aging hussy?

R104 No thank you.

And actually that wasn’t even true r112. Sabrina lebeauf had already shot her first episode as sondra when Charles made that statement and the finalists for the part were lebeauf and Whitney Houston, but Cosby was impressed with lebeaufs recent graduation from Yale school of drama.

Suzette is a great singer but didn’t have the star quality Vanessa did.

Suzette has also been on the outs with the pageant for a number of years. When she took over Vanessa only had about 2 weeks left of actual Miss America duties and most of that was sponsor appearances, Suzette was led to believe that she would be super busy and have lots of high profile appearances. She didn’t after the first week of taking over. She was opening for a lot of big names in Atlantic City but had to turn a lot of gigs down. I think she thought in hindsight that it hindered her career.

Vanessa got along with everyone in the Desperate Housewives cast. Enough said.

"My friend went to High School with her. She said she was very pretty and a drama-rama but had bad skin. So she was kind of quiet and humble but well liked. It probably grounded her. Acne can do that to someone."

My sister rode an elevator with her a few years ago and reported that she was short and had horrendous acne scars. Otherwise, unremarkable. I believed her.

I think this is my favorite DL thread. It’s so nice to hear that a celebrity I always suspected was cool as hell really is so.

R123, I never believed that Suzette was ever seriously considered for the role, but I still wonder why Suzette would stand there and tell such a lie. Maybe it was due to [italic]Vanessa[/italic] being the one that was Cosby's first choice to portray Sondra.

I've never read anything to confirm or deny this, but I always suspected that they gave the Huxtables' third daughter the name Vanessa as a tribute to Williams. The pilot was filmed in May of 1984, when Vanessa was still trucking along as Miss America with no indication on the drama that was going to transpire that summer.

Williams was signed to replace Twiggy on Broadway in a show called My One and Only.

The daughter of the Gershwin's had her fired after the pictures came out saying something like that slut is not singing my father's music.

Suzette has been coming to the Miss America pageant for the past couple of years. The former winners are a tight group and they have a great time together during the week of the pageant. Suzette has been among them.

Here's a photo of the Miss Americas during the 90th anniversary celebration in 2011. Lee Meriwether is standing on the far left. Gretchen Carlson is in the bottom row, third from the left. The woman to Carlson's left is Jean Bartel, Miss America 1943, the oldest titleholder remaining at the time. She sold more war bonds than any other person in the country during 1943. She passed away a few weeks after this picture was taken.

Vanessa wasn’t signed. She auditioned and that Gershwin woman was at the audition and that’s when she let the hate flow. It wasn’t a great fit for Vanessa anyway. It needed a vamp like Twiggy or a perky Sandy Duncan. Vanessa went on to do Spiderwoman to great acclaim and really made the role her own. No offense to Chita.

Not anymore r130, there’s a big rift among former winners over Gretchen Carlson’s leadership of the program after she took over. A number of them aren’t on speaking terms and a few have blocked each other on social media.

This is the group of former winners who wanted Gretchen out and felt she and the co CEO ran the pageant into the ground. I think the last straw for a lot of them was Carlson publicly bullying cara mund who was the current titleholder at the time. Delta Burke signed this petition.

I worked with Vanessa Williams one weekend on a symphony pops concert. She was delightful. Loved her. Very friendly, cooperative, pleasant to everyone--staff, musicians, crew. I arranged a several media interviews for her prior to her arriving in town for advance stories and a few interviews the day of the show. I was with her for half the day riding in the car visiting local television stations. She was great and very willing to participate and help publicize the show.

She even followed up with an email thanking me and suggesting a guest artist in case we were looking for a dashing, handsome and talented singer but no widely known. I have worked with a lot of celebrities; Vanessa Williams is one of the best. And her show was fabulous. Talented, lovely woman.

I loved the minute she did this.

R126 = Suzette Charles.

Vanessa Williams must be the only living celeb almost every poster has said only nice things about. The only others I remember us being so nice to were Jan Hooks and Natalie Cole, after those ladies had passed away.

Was Suzette Charles also the first black runner-up or did any other black woman get that far before the year in which Williams won?

R137 she was. the first black contestant to make it to the national pageant was in 1970. The first to make top 10 was in 1976 and the first to place was in 1980.

She does radiate a certain warmth that's rare for someone so beautiful and talented. I have a feeling her high school and Miss America experiences kept her expectations low and she's been riding on that ever since. People who experience hatred like that right out of the gate either end up super bitter or incredibly kind and well adjusted. Seems like Miss Williams is of the well adjusted variety.

She managed to make that monster she played in Ugly Betty likable. Even Meryl couldn’t manage that playing a similar character in Prada.

She always held a place in my heart she was Miss Greater Syracuse - my hometown - and then Miss New York. I've loved her since.

Thank you for the link to the podcast. Very revealing and makes me admire Vanessa Williams even more.

Wonder when the nude photos of the former Miss America were uncovered. Very telling that they weren't published until almost the end of her reign. Penthouse publisher at the time responded to criticism saying she'd be the one pageant winner that would also be remembered. Very true but more for her graciousness and personality than for what she got talked into doing in her past.

R137 Jan & Vanessa are the DL saints on this thread.

Natalie Cole did the bigoted religious right circuit praising them on air (I'm looking at you Pat Robertson) to promote her stuff.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that the Miss America Pageant actually apologized to Vanessa Williams during a televised pageant.

They realized that she was their most successful winner and how stupid it would be to keep denying her win.

Shebwas my first celeb interview back during Ugly Betty, but for her role on the board of Special Olympics. She was, in order of my impressions:

1. gorgeous--She looked like Vanessa Williams.

2. professional--She came across like a business executive more than a celebrity.

3. knowledgeable--I was astonished how much she knew about the organization she represented. I figured her role was probably that of a figurehead and I was wrong.

4. no nonsense--She was there to promote the organization as well as a movie she had recently made, but happy to talk about Ugly Betty and she discussed it as a job.

5. kind and generous--She gushed about Michael Urie, whom I believe she called a genius of a theatre actor. (She was right; see how his career has progressed.) She also was really forthright but also kind about working with an intellectually disabled actor in an indie movie. She said it was just like working with a child, and that it required a lot of patience and it was worth doing rather than casting a non-disabled actor in his place.

6. and humble--I legitimately love her singing voice, and she seemed a little taken aback when I asked why she doesn't sing anymore, as if she expected no one knew she ever did. She said she didn't know if anyone would be interested in her music.

She really earned my respect. I got the feeling she might be a very serious and strident person with a strong work ethic, and so she might be a little tough to work with if you're more into conviviality, but she was honestly one of the most satisfying celebrity conversations I've had.

[quote]Natalie Cole did the bigoted religious right circuit praising them on air (I'm looking at you Pat Robertson) to promote her stuff.

Her brother was gay, wasn't he?

And Natalie turned tricks to support her habit while launching her music career. Her mom cut her off financially IIRC. I bet The 700 Club would have changed their tune had they known about that.

[quote]Natalie Cole did the bigoted religious right circuit praising them on air (I'm looking at you Pat Robertson) to promote her stuff.

Her brother was gay, wasn't he?

And Natalie turned tricks to support her habit while launching her music career. Her mom cut her off financially IIRC. I bet The 700 Club would have changed their tune had they known about that.

She’s lovely. Still beautiful. Marvellous bone structure. Quite youthful even. The voice... but let’s not forget, Norma wasn’t black. Pleas. I mean, please.

[quote]I legitimately love her singing voice, and she seemed a little taken aback when I asked why she doesn't sing anymore, as if she expected no one knew she ever did. She said she didn't know if anyone would be interested in her music.

Rather odd, considering she did a major Broadway musical shortly after "Ugly Betty" ended.

Vanessa Williams is quite pretty and sings ok, but she is one of the least charismatic performers I've ever seen onstage.

I've seen her a bunch of times and to say she was "nothing exciting" is a major understatement. There's very little there there.

Even though she had only been on Desperate Housewives for the last two (shitty) seasons, she helped the other stars buy expensive gifts for the crew at the series wrap party.

Interesting update on Suzette Charles:

R150, you’re just sad LOL

She was in previews in London for City of Angels when the lockdown shut the theaters in mid March.

[quote] City of Angels Begins in London, Starring Theo James, Rosalie Craig, Vanessa Williams, and More

Vanessa Lynn Williams, 57 (born March 18, 1963)

Vanessa kind of looks like Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, 56.

Theo James is a singer?

I hope that he’s a better singer.

She needs to get back with Rick Fox. They’re gorgeous together.

Theo James used to be in a band. I think he also plays lots of instruments like piano and guitar. I saw a video of City of Angles rehearsals when they were promoting it and he has a good deep voice. Here's a video of his band rehearsing from his younger days.

On good days she smells of orange blossoms and honeysuckle.

Just an aside but Vanessa Williams was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March after returning from London. She talked about it in an interview. London was crazy not to shut the theaters down sooner. They were actually having previews with audiences for a while before they shut it down.

I always wondered why there was never a Broadway revival of "City of Angels." It's a fun show with a good score, and the original ran for a long time.

Roundabout should produce a revival of City of Angels. Studio 54 would be a great venue. Reunite the She Loves Me leads. Krakowski as Oolie, Benanti as Alaura, Gavin as Stine and whstshisnsme as Stone.

I do wish she would go the pop route again like her first 2 albums.