Exercise in star power
Tracee Ellis Ross looked over the 800 people at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich Thursday and seized an invitation to imagine which superpower she would choose.
“To read people’s minds,” she answered gleefully.
Ross the jester got the big laugh.
“Or ...”
Ross the activist carried on. “OK, to topple patriarchy ...” Big, big applause. I probably should have mentioned this was at the benefit for The Fund for Women & Girls of Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.
“Eliminate the toxic gas of racism and sexism ...”
She may not be able to read minds, but she was reading the room. The applause had a growth spurt.
“And introduce the idea and concept of matrilineal shared power.”
Has anyone else noticed there aren’t enough men in the room to fill one table? This round of applause was slightly hushed because some hands were busy Googling “matrilineal.”
the jester concluded.
My superpower is that I don’t forget things. So Ross triggered memories of anecdotes from her family’s years in Greenwich. For all of the rich and famous who have lived in the town, few are as iconic as the woman Ross — one of TV’s most influential moms — calls “Mom.”
Back in the 1980s, a colleague spotted Diana Ross in a restaurant, handed over her card and said something like “I don’t want to interrupt, but if you ever want to do an interview?” Ross allegedly (hey, I never heard her side of it) tore the card in half.
A few years later, a different female reporter was determined to score an interview. While I was picking up photos on Greenwich Avenue one afternoon, a friend pointed out that Ross was at the barbershop next door.
There she was, the big hair, the bigger eyes, glowing as she reassured her toddler son while he piloted the cardinal red rocketship with a look of doubt about this whole haircut nonsense.
It was about the cutest damn thing I ever saw. I honestly can’t say I wouldn’t take an iPhone shot if it happened now.
But I believe celebrities deserve a measure of privacy.
Or maybe I was just afraid of Miss Ross.
We walked back to the office. When our colleague overheard, she scrambled to the barbershop. She was back within minutes. “You were right, that is Diana Ross.”
The legend of tearing the card in half had delivered a message
A couple years later, I was asking the Greenwich Academy basketball coach for trivia about the team to include in the “Did you know?” section of the season preview.
“Well, there is a celebrity’s daughter on the team, but ...” she responded.
I stopped her.
“Don’t even tell me. I wouldn’t want to make the girl uncomfortable.”
Of course, I couldn’t resist trying to figure it out. I surmised that one player was the daughter of a minor TV actor. I could reveal my guess, but that would make me look even dumber.
I finally figured it out in the middle of interviewing Chudney Ross after a game. Tracee’s kid sister seemed relieved that I wanted to talk about the team’s comeback instead of her mom.
Tracee’s show “black-ish” has resonated with me. The father on the show is in perpetual turmoil that members of the family are losing their black identities due to their success and assimilation to white surroundings.
As a white dad with a biracial son, I sometimes fear I am warping his cultural identity in our own “white-ish” spinoff. So I smile when The Kid walks around the house belting “Stop! In the Name of Love” (who sang that?). And I shudder when he asks me to switch to a country music station so he can harmonize to the likes of “Beautiful Crazy” (I gotta talk to that bus driver).
Like Ross at the luncheon, “black-ish” is often hysterical, and equally bold.
After she won over the crowd, reporters were invited to a news conference. She had already said so much, but there was a question or two worth asking. Notably, she had teased about starting a business “that you all will hear about soon. It’s been extraordinary for me. To use my brain in a different capacity. I love being an actor, but ... I have a mind that wants to be used. So that’s coming.”
If nothing else, it felt like an obligation to at least try to seek more details.
Alas, that crashed when a woman asked the second worst question I’ve heard at a news conference (the first is a column for another day): “Tracee, I’m just curious why you never had children. You’re such a loving, giving, nurturing woman?”
I cringed. Everyone else cringed. You’re cringing now, aren’t you?
Ross tore the question in half. “I’m going to throw the question back at you. WHAT?! That is such as personal question that people ask and they think it’s an OK question. I just want to say that that’s a choice that is sacred and personal and why a person does or does not have children is really not a question for public consumption.”
Tracee Ellis Ross doesn’t need to read minds. Her other superpowers are enough.