The funniest thing about that defense is that Ross actually does, in effect, play a kid. Her character, a 24-year-old Harlem schoolteacher, is a home-body who has buttoned her feelings up tight. Though she's supposed to be teaching kindergarten, you have the feeling that even a 5-year-old could teach her a few things.
Baum's classic book-turned-film The Wizard of Oz. The 1939 movie adaptation starred Judy Garland as Dorothy. At the time she made her Broadway debut in 1974, Mills was 17. (For her part, Bailey is not much older, at 23.)
In 1977, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross filmed the Wiz in New York. He was 19 years old. Diana Ross, while filming The Wiz, was asked to Michael Jackson's apartment in New York and stayed the night.
However, a Motown singer and personal friend of Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, also wanted the role of Dorothy. Despite her manager Berry Gordy's discouragement, she managed to convince the film's exec producer, Rob Cohen, to arrange a deal where he would produce the film if she was cast as Dorothy.
What did Diana Ross say about Michael Jackson's death?
“I can't stop crying, this is too sudden and shocking. I am unable to imagine this,” Ross said at the time of his death. “My heart is hurting. I am in prayer for his kids and the family.”
Michael Jackson: “I wrote a song called 'Dirty Diana'. It was not about Lady Diana. It was about certain kinds of girls that hang around concerts or clubs, you know, they call them groupies. I've lived with that all my life.
THE WIZ was filmed at Astoria Studios and on location throughout New York City, including the base of the World Trade Center, where the Emerald City sequences were performed, and the Astor Place subway station. Other scenes took place at Shea Stadium, Yankee Stadium and Coney Island.
Stephanie Mills *was* in serious consideration to reprise her Broadway role. This was when it was a lower budgeted production that was being produced by Motown Productions. Miss Ross got wind of it and she contacted Berry Gordy, who told her she was too old for the part.
Phylicia Rashad (then Phylicia Ayers-Allen) appeared in the original Broadway company as a Munchkin and a Field Mouse, while also understudying the role of Glinda. Butterfly McQueen was a standby for Addaperle, and Ken Page was a replacement Lion.
BET shared a previous interview with V103 where Mills confessed that she and Jackson dated. “I loved Michael,” she said. “I thought that I was going to be Mrs. Michael Jackson, but I was ready at 20 and 21 to get married and he was not even close to getting married or having a girlfriend at the time, but yes we dated.
Critics panned The Wiz upon its October 1978 release. Many reviewers directed their criticism at Diana Ross, whom they believed was too old to play Dorothy. Most agreed that what had worked so successfully on stage simply did not translate well to the screen.
What's the difference between The Wiz and The Wizard of Oz?
Since The Wiz is more overtly political, it's notably more dramatic in tone than The Wizard of Oz. The Black main characters in The Wiz go through much more troubling circumstances and emotional journeys than the characters in the original source material.
Damien L. Sneed acted as the musical director and conductor of The Wiz: A Celebration in Dance and Music. From 1996 to 1997 there was a US concert version tour with Tasha Scott as Dorothy, Grace Jones (Evillene), Peabo Bryson (The Wiz), and CeCe Peniston as Glinda. The cast also featured Tony Terry as the Tin Man.
Michael referred to Diana as his “mother, lover, and sister all rolled into one.” Metaphorically speaking, Diana isn't Michael's mother or sister and she wasn't his lover: it's how he saw her in his head and how he treated her at the time.
Lisa Dean - Vogue cover girl Lisa Dean was known affectionately as Dirty Diana after she and her killer legs appeared in the “Dirty Diana” video. The five-minute motion picture won the "Number-One Video in the World" award at the 2nd World Music Awards in 1989.
Elizabeth Taylor and Diana Ross, two of Jackson's closest friends, as well as Eliza Jackson Duphrey, Quincy Jones, Ivonne Ester Duphrey (Michael Jackson's cousins) also did not attend. Whitney Houston was not able to attend the service either.
Did Michael Jackson go to Princess Diana's funeral?
Jackson was not present at Diana's London funeral alongside other friends of the late Princess, including Elton John and George Michael, but attended a memorial service for her held in Los Angeles where he told reporters he was there in “honor of my friend who is no longer here… I love her.”
“Why do you want water?” he asked. “To wash my face clean after the dust of the road, and to drink, so the dry bread will not stick in my throat.” They left the cottage and walked through the trees until they found a little spring of clear water, where Dorothy drank and bathed and ate her breakfast.
In later novels, the Land of Oz steadily becomes more familiar to her than her homeland of Kansas. Dorothy eventually goes to live in an apartment in the Emerald City's palace but only after her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have settled in a farmhouse on its outskirts, unable to pay the mortgage on their house in Kansas.
Dorothy wakes up in the strange, magical Land of Oz. She meets the Munchkins and Glinda, the good witch, who informs her that her house killed the Wicked Witch of the East when it landed in Oz. Just as the Munchkins finish celebrating her death, the Wicked Witch of the West shows up.
What mental illness did Dorothy have in The Wizard of Oz?
We're no shrinks, but it seems like Dorothy could be suffering from HPD, a disorder that manifests itself through attention-seeking behavior, intense theatricality, and a shallow array of emotions.
