Diana Ross: A Biography by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Author:J. Randy Taraborrelli
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2014-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

Filming Mahogany

On 12 November 1974, shooting for Mahogany began in the middle of a tough Chicago neighborhood at 51st Street and Ellis Avenue. A few months earlier, Gordy and Cohen had selected a run-down tenement apartment in that location to be Tracy Chambers’ home. However, when the Motown contingent arrived they discovered that the owner of the complex had been so excited about having a Diana Ross movie filmed there that he had made drastic renovations. “After he finished, it looked like a goddamn Beverly Hills mansion in the middle of the ghetto,” John Byrum said. “The production art director had to go back and mess it all up, sandblasting the paint off the front of it, smashing the windows, trying to make it look like a ghetto again. We laughed a lot over that. It was one of the only light moments we would have in Chicago, actually.”

In the months preceding the first day of shooting, Diana had applied herself to designing the many costumes for the film. In all, she designed fifty—from casual sportswear to elegant evening gowns—and supervised every phase of the operation, from purchasing the fabrics to beading and color and fabric coordination; some of the materials cost as much as $1,000 a yard. She always had a sense of style, color and texture and put it to good use with this endeavor. For her Mahogany wardrobe she was influenced by elements of Kabuki theater and the sensibility of French Art Deco designer Erté. She was given her own space at the Goldwyn Studio; soon drawings of beaded dragons covered the walls and seamstresses were everywhere. In the middle of it all was Diana, giving them hell. It was a scene that would actually be duplicated for the movie.

The outfits for Mahogany were all a reflection of Diana’s colorful personality—pure glitz and fantasy, all the way—and, when she finished, she was quite proud of her work. Before leaving for Chicago, she hosted a showing of her costumes in a small boutique on Sunset Strip. “The whole point, I thought, was to impress her mother,” recalled John Byrum.

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