EGG (March 1991)
INTRODUCTION PART
Vanessa Williams: The Last Laugh
Adversity´s brought out the
best in her.
She´s recording, she´s acting, she´s performing. And she
sounds as good as she looks.
By Hal Rubenstein.
Photography by Diego Uchitel.
She didn´t become a morning talk show
host.
She doesn´t sell frozen chicken.
She´s never had a Toni home permanent.
She´s not in love with Gary Collins.
And she´s never been picked up for
shoplifting.
Vanessa Williams
Is not like other former Miss
Americas.
She´s the only one with a gold album.
She´s the only one with a brand new album.
And she´s the only one with something
else,
but she´s given that a rest.
After reading this, so should you.
Never have I been in the company of someone who has been stopped dead, waved to, hi-signed, gushed over; ogled at, and autograph-hounded like Vanessa Williams. No matter where we stood or sat while Christmas shopping-at a street corner on La Cienega; on the checkout line at Toys"R"Us; in a parking lot at the Beverly Center or a booth at Ed Debevic's - there was always at least one person simultaneously hovering close, hesitating to speak, blushing like a first-grader playing the prince in his first school play as soon as this lady's long russet mane came into view.
If Williams were more famous (or merely more ubiquitous); perhaps if she were more influential, more ruthless, overtly tall or Russ Meyerously stacked; maybe if she were known to drop twenties in her wake, her incredible recognition factor would make better sense. But she quafifies as none of the above. In fact, in the last two years, she has been on fewer magazine covers than k.d. lang, and who recognizes her? (lang sat next to me on a six-hour flight. Not one passenger so much as hummed as they walked by.) Then how come, at Toys"R"Us, a man came as close to dropping real drool as any of the dolls he was looking at, and why did a parking valet at the Beverly Center walk smack into a Miata's rear-view mirror - at crotch level? (Williams was unaware of both incidents).
Vanessa Wllhams's celebrity is really the result of a two-step process. First, she is spotted for an oh, so obvious reason, having nothing to do with her talent or her past: she is simply extraordinarily heart-quickeningly lovely. (There must be tiny halogen bulbs behind her green-blue irises.) Only after her beauty has caught one's eye does the "Hey, I know her" part start. Naturally, here's where the Miss America factor figures in - a formula derived from one part first-black-woman-to-be-"walkmg-on-air-she-is," and two parts The Goof- the set of photographs published in Penthouse that will probably dog her her entire life.
But if this one mistake-which injured no one else (no matter how much the late Albert Marks, Jr., and his other Calvinist Miss America Pageant officials wailed in outrage); for which she blamed no one else, and on which she never capitalized with a quickie bio from St Martin's Press, or by playing herself on a mini-series - had remained the sole source of her fame, then she would have wound up a cartoon like Brigitte Nielsen, a clown like Jessica Hahn, or a fool like Marla Maples.
But Vanessa Williams ain't none of them. Disappointing the gawkers, trashing the sleazemongers, she kept her eyes dry, her mouth shut and went to work; and, with the help and love of her manager/husband Ramon Hervey, as well as with the faith of Ed Eckstine of PolyGram Records, she has blossomed into a gold-record-earning, Grammy-nominated singer for her first album, The Right Stuff, with a new album on its way next month, a working actress with two films, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Another You soon to be in release, and best of all the mother of two daughters, Melanie and Jillian, with whom she sings every night rather than leave them in the clutches of Ninja Turtles. True, The Goof has had a lasting effect. She hardly puils a punch, apologizes for nothing, exhibits no illusions about an industry that initlaily was only willing to welcome her with a pat on the butt, and sometimes speaks with such honesty about the way she was dealt with in the past that we had to leave some of her recollections out, because we want her to work again. Most people in Hollywood have much shorter memories.
Vanessa Williams is one tough cookie. With sugar on top. Consequently what's going on when the former Once-and-Future Miss America 1984 from Millwood, New York, walks down the street is the honest outpouring of unabashed affection folks exhibit when they spot a fighter, when they want to acknowledge someone who got unfairly slugged, who then, rather than turn the other cheek, hit back with the other fist. Her year-minus-six-weeks' reign has long since ended, but Vanessa Wililams has reemerged wearing the crown of a winner. And this time, it's on for good.
