Article from the book "Face Painting"

VANESSA WILLIAMS

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By Reggie Wells

I dialed as fast as my fingers could race over the numbers on the phone. I couldn´t believe what I had just seen, but there was no time to wonder over it. The most sleek, gifted, intelligent, and breathtakingly black woman had just been crowned Miss America 1984, and there was no time to waste. The beauty editor at Essence magazine answered the phone and immediatly agreed with me that, whatever it took, Essence had to be the first national magazine to have this girl on the cover. "Oh, one more thing," I added. "I want to do her makeup."

Of course this girl was Vanessa Williams. Like most Americans, the first time I saw her won on television that night of the Miss America pageant. She won me over with her confident and proud style and her outstanding rendition of the Broadway tune "Happy Days Are Here Again" (an old-time favorite of mine). As time would tell, her talent and personality weren´t manufactured for this one event; they were the core and soul of this remarkable young woman.

Vanessa did come to New York shortly after the pageant for an Essence cover shoot. Because she was rushed in and out so quickly, I wasn´t there to do her makeup. But knowing this girl would go far, I had no doubt we´d catch up with each other some other time somewhere down the road.

We met professionally a short time later during a print shoot for another magazine. I noticed right away that she was as confident and pretty in person as she in public appearances. Her catlike green eyes, her tawny complexion, and her dazzling smile all came together to create an absolutley beautiful face – with one small flaw. Right away, I told her when I saw her onstage at the Miss America pageant I loved everything about her, but there was one thing that bothered me about her appearance. "All through the performance," I said, "I couldn´t stop thinking that you needed your eyebrows tweezed." Vanessa laughed at my candid observation, but it was true. There was too much brow for the face. So that day, I tweezed Vanessa´s eyebrows down to a more complenmentary shape. She saw the difference right away and loved it.

While working with this beautiful face, I wondered, What´s this woman really like inside? The conversation started with the usual pleasanties: How are you today? Congratulations on being crowed Miss America. And so on. But when I asked her about her choice of song for the talent competition, her face lit up and the conversation took off. Vanessa told me she had been a musical theater major at Syracuse University and absolutely loved Broadway. That was her ambition, she told me, to star in a Broadway play.

What a delight to talk at length to someone so young and yet so knowledgeable about musical theater. And what a thrill to work with someone who was so sure of where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. Vanessa had it all mapped out. She knew she wanted to record an album, win a Grammy, and go on Broadway and star in her own show. These weren´t just the idle dreams of a starstruck girl; they were the calculated and firm goals of a determined and talented young lady. Vanessa believed shed could reach out and grab all these things – nothing was impossible for her.

The next time I worked with Vanessa was in her apartment before her appearance on Good Morning America. She was getting ready to face her public for the first time since the news leaked that she was going to lose her crown only one month before the end of her reign. I remember, above all other things that day, her attitute. Some of the joy and enthusiasm that had been hers the last time we met was gone, but not all of it. She told me that morning that she was not going to let this defeat her on take away her dreams. She was going to keep going forward. She wasn´t feeling bewildered or sad; she determinded. No matter how far down she would go after that day´s appearance, she knew she had the strength and courage to endure it and rise above it.

Vanessa Williams may have been much younger than I was, but she had a lot to teach me. I too was down. I had been in the business for a long time, but it didn´t seem like I was going anywhere. I was standing still and had lost sight of some of the goals and dreams I had set for myself. If this fallen Miss America would not be stopped my scandal or misfortune, certainly I could find the strength and motivation to revive my own dreams. Our meeting that day changed the way I looked at my own future; it filled my view of the days ahead with optimism and hope. And it made me see that Vanessa´s future would be bright too, despite what was happening on that day. She wasn´t in tears; she wasn´t blaming others. Vanessa Williams was not going out in disgrace. She was going out as a model of determination in the face of public ridicule and exploitation.

I worked with Vanessa several times after that day. We did a few magazine covers, MTV shows, and performances. I remember once when I was working for The Oprah Winfrey Show I saw Vanessa again after a long separation. She was married at that point to her former manager, Ramon Hervey, and she had two beautiful children, Melanie and Jillian, whom I met backstage. I felt so proud of her. She stood there as a mature wife and mother and successful entertainer. She had become the person she had dreamed of all those years ago. Since we´d last spoken, Vanessa had used her spectucular style and relentless drive to reach many goals she had told me about years earlier. She had three hit albums, she was a seven-time Grammy nominee, she had twice received the Image Award from the NAACP for her music, and she had starred in a string of television movies. Shwas was only one goal short of having it all.

Knowing this, I can´t tell you how excited I felt the night I sat in the audience and watched the curtain rise on Vanessa Williams starring in the Broadway smash hit Kiss of the Spider Woman. After the show, I hugged her with warm and heartfelt congratulations. I felt so much emotion for this wonderful young girl who had reached past those who tried to keep her down and found the top of the world.