The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal (59 page)

While the charade played out, the real Flo seemed to be adapting to life on the outside with a mixture of relief, resignation, and cynicism—but surprisingly little anger.

RAY GIBSON: Florence still felt betrayed, but she was definitely happier. It was like she could breathe for the first time in years.

She got out of the hospital and had all this energy. She wouldn’t have to be flying, she wouldn’t have to be tormented by Diana 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 307

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and Berry. And, frankly, she was expecting to kick back and live off all that money she was supposed to have. She’d given seven years of her life to her work and through all that time Berry would say, “We’re all gonna be millionaires.” So now she said,

“Okay, where is it?”

Gordy had thought of that, too. With the fine print of Ballard’s firing needing to be worked out, he didn’t even wait to let the flames of the riots die down before arranging a meeting with Flo for July 26. To avoid the sticky situation of Flo coming to Hitsville, he chose the Northland Inn in Southfield, Michigan, for the meeting. As it happened, Motown was still closed on that day and Gordy not yet home from Las Vegas, but the meeting went on as planned, with his place taken by Mike Roshkind. Anticipating that she would be settling up with the company, and that she would leave with her freedom and her money, Flo came in without a lawyer, though that may have been at Motown’s insistence, with the assurance that this was a “family” matter and that lawyers would only prey on her naiveté and steal her money—

their assumption being, evidently, that only the Motown lawyers had a right to do that.

Indeed, the first sign that this was to be something other than a family gathering was the sight of Roshkind. Flo didn’t know who Roshkind was, or of his reputation as Gordy’s attack dog, but she found out right away why he was there when the squat, scowling flack immediately started browbeating her about the clause in her contract that denied her any usage of the Supremes’ name if she recorded for another label. This meant there could be no billing with the words

“former Supreme,” no albums with titles using the word “Supreme,” no liner notes that even mentioned the group, or even her association with Motown.

This, of course, wasn’t merely petty posturing but just plain non-sense. There were ways of getting around that proscription with creative wordplay; besides, wouldn’t anyone who would buy a Flo Ballard record know exactly who she was? But it was the way Roshkind came off, his “or else” tone of voice, that shook her. At the time, she was just out of the hospital and still on medication for her nerves, which made her feel weak and did little to alleviate her paranoid tendencies.

“I’m scared of this white man,” she told Tommy later.

The meeting got nastier when money was discussed, or rather, not discussed. Roshkind, with no interest in what Flo had to say, told her 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 308

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she would never see another dime in royalties from the Supremes’

future work—but could stay with Motown, provided that she sign a contract extension and have the company handle her career. If she left, Motown was prepared to “settle up” at $2,500 a year for six years against future royalties of her old Supremes records. While Flo may not have known how much all those hits brought in each year, $2,500

sounded more like a weekly cut, just from radio plays alone. As for what was being held by Gordy in escrow, much of her fortune from ten No. 1 hits, Roshkind said nothing.

As intimidated as she was, Flo could see through the muddle of Gordy having fired her from the Supremes only to turn around and want to extend her service. What he really had in mind, she reckoned, was to keep her out of the way and quiet, “or else.” Roshkind actually had the nerve, or gall, to tell her that if she didn’t re-up with Motown,

“Berry won’t have anything to do with you.”

“Do with
me
?” she replied with a rising laugh. “I don’t care if I ever see that man again!”

Still, she was bullied enough to agree, and walked out of the room shaking and in tears, with nothing in her hand but a carbon copy of the royalty agreement that would net her a paltry fifteen grand. “Is that all I’m worth?” she moaned to Tommy when she got home. He, too, had left the company, claiming that Gordy assured him he could have his chauffeur job back any time he wanted—which, if so, might have been a “divide and conquer” mind game being played by Gordy.

Now, as he and Flo made plans to marry in early ’68, she had time to think about Motown’s very nearly sadistic personal humiliation of her—the kind never faced by Mary Wells or other Motown expatriates who had the temerity to jilt the company. Realizing that she’d been cheated at the Northland Inn, and that she had no family at Motown, she did what she should have done before being dressed down by Mike Roshkind. On August 24, Ballard retained at a 20 percent commission the Detroit firm of Baun, Okrent, and Vulpe, making the lead attorney, Leonard Baun, her business manager, even though he was not practiced in entertainment law and had never written or seen a show-business contract.

Already hamstrung by Flo having signed the royalty agreement, Baun had little leverage but was excited by the chance to shake loose some of Motown’s millions, even if he would have to go up against the assembled might of Gordy’s legal representation. He had confidence, and Flo liked that. He told her he knew Ralph Seltzer from when they’d 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 309

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both worked at law firms in the same building downtown. Meetings were quickly set up between Baun and Motown lawyers George Schiffer and Sydney and Harold Novick. To Flo, Baun was just the kind of heavy hitter to go toe-to-toe with them.

Reasonably hopeful that her money was just around the corner, she expected that her grievances with Motown would be taken seriously.

Actually, she had more grievances than she knew. For instance, there had been movie offers for her, alone, that had come in to Gordy and were quashed out of hand because only Diana could be in a movie. Just as there’d been scuttlebutt in the New York gossip columns that Broadway producer David Merrick had his eye on Flo for an all-black production of
Hello Dolly
. With a big-time lawyer on the case now, Flo was convinced that projects of that kind would be hers for the taking, in addition to a solo singing career. Her old sass returned, with lines to friends like “My tomorrow looks promised” and “Lord knows, my bread is buttered.”

By the end of summer, her bitterness had eased toward Diana and Mary, but not toward Big Daddy, whom she routinely referred to as

“that evil Berry Gordy.” When the Supremes played the Michigan State Fair, drawing a record 20,000 people to a free concert, Flo and Tommy were in left-front-row seats, with an animated Flo loudly singing along to her old songs and glad-handing fans who recognized her. In the
Detroit News
that day, Diana was quoted as saying of Ballard, “We’re still good friends,” with Mary attributing Flo’s departure to the result of

“the hard work and traveling all the time.” To all appearances, the schism had healed.

Two weeks later, on September 15, Baun’s sessions with Motown netted results. Gordy released to Baun $75,689 from the ITMI escrow account for Ballard at the Bank of Commonwealth. With the money Baun opened a trust fund account under the name of Talent Management, with Flo listed as president, Tommy Chapman as vice-president, and Baun as treasurer. This was a wise move, as it kept Flo from being able to take the money all at once and possibly squander it. Baun explained to her that periodic withdrawals would mean compounded interest and less tax to pay, and that solid investments could be made.

Flo thought she was benefiting from sound fiscal advice, from someone who got things done and cared about her interests, as opposed to “evil Gordy.” And Baun kept coming through. On December 5, Motown released some token stock that had been kept in Flo’s name. Baun had put her on an allowance of $2,000 a week—four times what she 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 310

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was paid as a Supreme—and, as Gordy had, authorized payments for occasional luxury items like clothes and a new El Dorado. He also obtained credit cards for the officers of TM—the first credit card Flo ever had. She even had a stock portfolio, after Baun invested $10,000 in 34.3 shares of the Dreyfus mutual fund.

There was still a good deal of unfinished business with Motown—

namely, the official termination of her contract and an equitable settlement (i.e., all funds due her from the escrow account). Things were proceeding smoothly enough for Flo to turn her attention to singing again. Chapman began putting out feelers to record companies about getting behind the career of the first Supreme to go solo. It was a clever sales pitch, framed so that Flo would beat Diana Ross to the solo-artist market, and in December ABC Records in New York, using former Motown promotions man Lou Zito as a conduit, sent word to Chapman: “Let’s talk.”

Only then did the negotiations with Motown hit a snag—and hardly by coincidence, Baun suspected. Clearly, the last thing Gordy wanted at this point was Florence Ballard receiving accolades and reaping hits so soon after her departure from the Supremes, which would put her in competition with the Supremes she had left behind and in a position to step on Ross’s endlessly impending breakout. However, denying her any stated connection to the Supremes hadn’t scared her away; and if releasing her funds piecemeal was an inducement for her to literally keep her mouth shut—given that a final termination agreement was necessary for her to sign with any other label—when ABC

made a hard offer Motown couldn’t pussyfoot around anymore. The offer was modest by Supremes standards but decent for a relatively obscure singer: For recording two intended singles and an album of material, Ballard would receive a $15,000 advance on royalties.

Throughout the negotiations, even as it was releasing monies to Flo, Motown had never acknowledged that Flo was, in fact, no longer a part of the company. Her contract, they insisted, was still binding—

and what’s more, whether Flo knew it or not, by signing the future royalty agreement at the Northland Inn she had legally accepted the extension, because those weren’t separate agreements at all but linked together. Baun never took that argument seriously, regarding her signature that day as invalid, as having been coerced without benefit of an attorney present on her behalf. But the claim allowed Motown to sit on its hands for months, effectively stalling the ABC deal. Gordy’s mouth-pieces stopped speaking with Baun altogether, leaving his calls un an-0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 311

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swered and refusing all requests to check Motown books and documents. At one point, they insisted that the Supremes’ original contracts could not be found—and, in any case, there may not even have
been
any.

As best as Baun and his co-counsel Ralph Jewell could piece together, the Supremes had grossed, all told, $1.6 million for the first eight months of 1967 alone. Theoretically, that would mean Flo would be entitled to at least $500,000 that year, before those notorious expenses. By a conservative estimate, it was reasonable to place her overall career share at something like $1.5 million, even if Motown’s accountants could be believed that the Supremes had not received any royalties until 1965.

A complicating factor—and yet another reason for Flo to be paranoid—was that she was under investigation by the IRS. Because Motown accountants had prepared her income tax returns, Baun had no records for her and had to estimate, and pay back taxes on, earnings she may not have been paid. As if all this wasn’t enough, Motown claimed,
ex post facto
, that because Flo had actually agreed to the contract extension by signing the royalty agreement at the Northland Inn, freeing up some of Flo’s escrow money proved only that Gordy had sole discretion on such matters. To Baun, the claim was pure
chutzpah.

There’d be more to come. When Baun contended that Flo had a monetary interest in the Supremes’ name, having chosen it herself, Motown denied she had ever done any such thing. It also maintained that royalties for Supremes records would fall drastically in the future, a canard that Baun would credulously stipulate during negotiations. Early in 1968, however, Baun decided to go over the lawyers’ heads and appeal directly to Gordy, who refused to take his calls. When Ralph Seltzer learned of the calls, he was incensed and he, too, refused Baun’s calls, telling him he could go tell his case to a judge.

That is exactly what Baun wanted to do, pressing Flo to agree to let him file a civil lawsuit against Motown and subpoena all relevant documents and records. But with the ABC deal in peril—the company lawyers having nullified their offer while Flo fought it out with Motown, fearing Gordy would sue
them
for tampering—she believed that would create further delay and cost her huge legal fees in a case she couldn’t win. Indeed, Sydney Novick seemed to be daring her to take Motown to court. Of the fifteen grand she’d agreed to, he sniffed to Baun, “Take it or forget it and start your lawsuit.” Instead, Flo had Baun continue to push for a settlement. Turning up the heat, he began giving Motown a preview of what it could expect 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 312

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if the case did go to court, blistering Gordy for keeping Flo in “chivalry servitude” and making her a “vassal.” This incendiary terminology made Gordy chafe as he tried to reckon how it would play against Motown’s mostly white top brass. And what might Flo herself say on the stand in open court? The PR hits he stood to take made him shudder. Accordingly, Motown came back to the bargaining table in mid-February 1968, wanting now just to be done with the whole affair.

Following an intense several days, on February 22 Baun signed off on the terms of a nine-page termination agreement—terms that fell far short of $1.6 million.