VANESSA WILLIAMS: Inspired Every Day
by David Lefkowitz
(This article was first published April 2015 in Long Island Woman.)
How times have changed. Before releasing sex tapes became a common shortcut to stardom, it was once considered embarrassing and career-ruining for an actress to be caught with her pants literally down. Imagine that you’re Miss New York and then crowned Miss America, with the world at your feet, when suddenly a desperate moment from your past sneaks up on you.
That, of course, is what happened to Vanessa Williams in 1984, when Bob Guccioni of Penthouse magazine made a deal with a photographer who had taken nude pictures of the starlet two years earlier. Williams sued for half a billion dollars but dropped the suit, and the pictures were published in an issue of Penthouse whose mocking, G-rated cover showed a publicity still of Miss America posing with George Burns. Worse, the actress-singer – who received death threats just for being the first African-American pageant champ — was forced to resign, though she was allowed, technically, to keep her crown.
For the last seven weeks of that season, Williams’s throne was occupied by Suzette Charles, who went on to act in soap operas, do voice work, record a couple of singles in England, and raise two kids. Meanwhile, you could say the deposed Ms. Williams had a bit more luck in the entertainment industry. By 1988, she was releasing hit songs on the R&B and Billboard pop charts, and going triple platinum with her second album, “Comfort Zone.”
Further musical success led her to Broadway, where she followed Chita Rivera as the titular, bewitching Aurora in 1994’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. “I didn’t have any trepidation taking the role,” Williams recalled in our brief, late-autumn phone conversation, “except that I had to hold a long B [note] at the end of `Where You Are.’ It was after a big dance number, and it was probably a good 16 counts, and I would just ask, Oh, jeez, how do you do it? How do you hold that note?’ And I was told, `You just gotta stand there and squeeze and blow.’ So on opening night, I held the note for eight counts and then went up the octave just to get extra breath, push through it, and definitely make it my own.
“It was a spectacular night,” continued Williams. “I had all my friends and family in the audience that night to watch me do something I knew that I wanted to do my whole life. That was fantastic. But I was more excited and anxious to get rolling than fearful. As a musical-theater major, I’d done a bunch of shows growing up, so to be on Broadway was a goal for all of us.”
It’s a goal that Williams has achieved thrice more, appearing as the witch in the 2002 revival of Into the Woods, and also torch singing last year as a guest star in the marvelous dance revue, After Midnight. And then there was the 2013 revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful opposite Blair Underwood and Cicely Tyson. “This was pretty much my second year with the show,” Williams recalled. “We opened on Broadway. Then we did the TV movie. Then we did L.A., and then just closed Boston. I think we did 250 odd shows. And Cicely was a marvel. When we finished, she said, `I didn’t miss one. I didn’t miss one.’ To be her age — ”
“Hey, what is her age?” I couldn’t help but interject, since Ms. Tyson’s true birthday is a secret kept even more closely than the formula for Coca Cola, with guesses ranging between the mid-seventies to ninety plus. “So do you know how old she really is?”
“We kind of do, but we’re sworn to secrecy!” laughed Williams. “She’s a marvel for her actual age, which is amazing. And she inspired me every day. She’s a strong, strong woman, even in terms of just her physical strength and her physicality. Between her and Chita, just watching their work ethic, and the sheer stamina that these legends have – and their professionalism, it’s so inspiring. The show starts – it might not start on time all the time, but it will start and it will finish — and it’s a true testament to being a professional. That’s what I learned watching her. And also the love of the craft. When you see people that are truly talented and know that’s their calling, that’s what inspires you and just reaffirms that `I’m doing what I should be doing.’
“You see the pure glee on Ms. Tyson’s face,” added Williams, “when everyone leaps to their feet for the standing ovation that she always gets every night. We lift her up in the air off into the wings. And she says, `We did it.’ And she’ll kiss my hand and kiss Blair’s hand, and you realize that’s a job well done, but it’s also what fuels her. That’s why we do what we do. That’s why eight shows a week seems like a tough schedule, but we do it because the audience is there, and we’re giving them what they want, and we’re giving them more than they expected. And that’s what I wanna be doing when I’m her age – whatever that age may be!”
In the meantime, what Williams is doing now is having fun being the spokesvoice for M&Ms – specifically one M&M, the dark chocolate Ms. Brown. With the return of the crispy version of the dot-like candies, Mars, Inc. has called back “The Chief Chocolate Operating Officer” for a new promotional push. “I love Ms. Brown, so I’m happy to be a part of it,” Williams offered. “I don’t know where she got her PhD, but she’s very, very smart, and she runs everything in terms of the chocolate factory. The character breakdown came through my agent saying they wanted her to be very smart and very dry, a la Wilhelmina Slater from Vanessa Williams in `Ugly Betty.’ So I said, `Why don’t you just use me?’ They had me in mind anyway, and I don’t know if they thought they couldn’t get me or something, but they got me. I’m here. And in terms of my career, it’s funny because a lot of adults know who I am, but when the young ones know that I’m the voice of Ms. Brown, all of a sudden, their eyes light up. So now I’ve got some cachet in the younger market.”
Williams’s own younger self grew up in Westchester, though her family roots lie on Long Island. “We did a piece on a show called `Who Do You Think You Are,’” recalled Williams, “and they traced all my Oyster Bay roots. As far as we know it, our family goes back to 1842 on my dad’s side. My great-great grandfather, David Carll, was born in 1842 in Cold Spring Harbor. He grew up in Oyster Bay and got married to Mary Louisa Appleford in an interracial relationship back in 1863. He was one of the first troops – colored troops – to sign up for the Civil War. He went down, fought and came back. Then he used his money to buy a house up on a hill which is still in the family – in fact, family members still live there. We come from a long, proud tradition of Long Island families, all coming out of Oyster Bay.”
Grounded in middle-class suburban life, teenaged Williams studied piano and French horn before heading off to Syracuse University, an education interrupted by her pageant career but finished in 2008 when she completed her credits and graduated with a degree in Musical Theater Arts. Post-fame acting roles included “Desperate Housewives,” the cult film “Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man” and “Eraser” with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Recalling her costar, Williams noted, “Arnold is a true leader. He walks in the room, and everyone pays attention. And that’s why, when he ran for governor, I thought it was a transition that was completely plausible and made sense to me.”
The actress had more measured words when asked about another icon, Bill Cosby. No, she’s not one of his many accusers, but with his alleged sexual assaults so relentlessly in the news, it is impossible not to be curious about Williams’s opinion. As she admitted in her 2012 memoir, “You Have No Idea,” when she was 10 years old, Williams was molested by an older female friend of her family. As she told Oprah Winfrey in an interview, “One night [the friend] came into the room where my friend and I were sleeping, and she told me to lie down on the floor. She took my bottoms off and she said, ‘Be quiet,’ and she went down on me. I knew it felt good, but also something that was not supposed to be happening.” For years, she kept quiet and suppressed the memory, which she regrets because it led to “the shame that was always haunting me.”
Which led us to the Cosby question. “It’s horrible news that is coming to light – if this is all true,” Williams stated. “It’s unfortunate that someone who has created such a good role model for so many people across the board – black, white – he was the role model on television. To have this antithesis of what the image is and have all this other stuff come out is unbelievable, and I hope it’s not true and will go away. It’s unfortunate for everybody. I don’t know the statute of limitations and bringing things to trial . . . But I think he got the message very clearly, in terms of behavior and repercussions.”
Although Wikipedia notes that Williams’s ancestry is a mix of everything from Portuguese to African to Finnish to British, she does respond as a black woman to the longstanding troubles between police and the African-American community, a mutual mistrust that led last year to the unnecessary deaths of two unarmed blacks and the retaliatory slaying of two beat cops. “There’s a friend who’s in my band that I’ve had since 1997,” Williams related. “He’s my bass player, an accomplished musician from Ferguson, Missouri. He studied at Berklee School of Music, and his daughter is a junior at Georgetown. He’s an extraordinary musician and father and man. He told me that every time he goes home, he’s pulled over. He made a U-turn one time visiting home. The police came up, pulled him out of the car, put him in shackles, locked him up for 24 hours and then let him go. Without any kind of charge, any kind of explanation. So when this all broke, I asked him, `You’re from St. Louis, Al, what do you think?’ He said, `I’m so happy there’s light shed on this issue.’
“This is something that is systematic, according to people that live there,” continued Williams. “Unfortunately, it took this to shine a light on this system. But that was my first-hand knowledge of somebody who I know personally who has had this happen time and time again. For a man to be shackled for making a U-turn is ridiculous.”
Twice divorced, the mother of four children, and recently engaged to a retired accountant, Williams doesn’t shy away from topics other celebrities might consider controversial. She’s a strong supporter of gay rights and marriage and has admitted to having an abortion as a teenager (“Being pregnant is the most frightening thing that happens in your life,” she told “Nightline.” “I knew in high school that’s something that I was not prepared to do, or fight, or struggle with.”) Williams has even owned up to using – gasp! — botox. But she’s also earned the privilege of enjoying her success, or, as she told Oprah, “It’s my time to relax, explore and see what comes.”
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David Lefkowitz co-publishes Performing Arts Insider (TotalTheater.com), hosts Dave’s Gone By (davesgoneby.org) on UNC Radio, edits the theater section of Stagebuddy.com, and co-created Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon (shalomdammit.com).
The Collected Writings of... David Lefkowitz 