Women's History Month (WHM) - March 2007

Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa L. Williams

Also known as: Vanessa Williams, Vanessa Lynne Williams, Valessa Williams

Birth: March 18, 1963 in New York, New York, United States

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

As the first African-American to be crowned Miss America, Vanessa L. Williams made history. Unfortunately, a scandalous secret from her past also forced her to become the first young woman in the pageant's history to resign her crown, threatening to destroy her promising entertainment career in the process. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Williams began to reinvent herself and before she knew it, she had a string of successful albums and concert tours, a critically acclaimed show on Broadway, and a high-profile film and television acting career. All of this has not come easily, as Williams has had to deal with private and public turmoil along the way. But because she always manages to land on her feet, Williams is considered not only one of the most versatile entertainers in recent history, but one of the most determined as well.

Vanessa Lynne Williams was born on March 18, 1963, in New York City, to Milton and Helen Williams. Her parents were music teachers who both taught privately and in schools. The family, which also included a son named Christopher, enjoyed an upper-middle class lifestyle, and both Williams and her brother received extensive musical training from their parents. Over time, Williams would become proficient in a multitude of instruments including the piano, French horn, and violin. In addition, she also was an excellent singer. By junior high and high school, Williams would become interested in acting, and would go on to star in numerous school plays while receiving a Presidential Scholarship for Drama. Williams' mother was proud of her accomplishments, but always reminded her of the troubles that young black women often faced. "You have to try twice as hard as other people, just to break even," Helen Williams recalled telling her daughter in The Black Collegian.

After high school, Williams decided to attend Syracuse University, where her good looks and natural theatrical talent attracted the attention of the director of the Miss Greater Syracuse Pageant. The director asked her to enter the contest, but at first Williams seemed uninterested. But when she learned that part of the prizes awarded to winner included scholarship money, she changed her mind. In 1983, Williams would not only be crowned Miss Greater Syracuse, but Miss New York State as well. Her next stop would be the famed Miss America Pageant.

There She Is

The Miss America Pageant of 1983 will always be remembered as a breakthrough in the name of racial equality. In addition to Williams, there were three other African-American contestants: Amy Keys of Maryland, North Carolina's Deneen Graham, and the woman who would eventually go on to be the first-runner up, Suzette Charles from New Jersey. At the time, this was the highest number of black contestants in one year for the pageant. To Williams, this was a non-issue. "Ideally, a black Miss America could be a role model for all young women in America, not just minorities," she told People Weekly.

The benefits to being crowned Miss America were all too obvious to Williams. In addition to the $25,000 in scholarship money, there was also the chance to earn upwards of $100,000 in endorsement and personal appearance fees. Williams wowed the judges with her poise, beauty, intelligence and talent, including an original singing performance of the standard 'Happy Days Are Again.' When the crown was finally awarded to her, she seemed to understand the historical importance of the moment.

Almost immediately, the public would become divided over this history-making event. On one hand, black people would celebrate it as a defining moment for their race, while radical whites would protest it and even go as far as to threaten Williams' life. Still, there was another group of African-Americans who would criticize Williams because her skin was too light, her hair was too straight, her eyes were the wrong color and her upbringing was too privileged. In short, they felt that Williams was not black enough, and therefore not a true representation of their race. Meanwhile, Williams ignited further controversy by expressing her views on abortion and other difficult issues that conflicted with her Catholic background. Still, Williams took all this in stride and always put on a happy face for her numerous personal appearances. "I don't believe the fact that I am black has anything to do with my qualifications to be Miss America. I'm making waves and I'm ready to handle it. I'm ready for whatever crisis I have to face," she remarked in People Weekly. Ultimately, those word would prove to be prophetic.

There She Goes

In July of 1984, with just two short months left in her reign as Miss America, Williams' life would be turned upside down. Two years earlier, when Williams was a freshman at Syracuse University, she had taken a job as a secretary and makeup artist for a photographer named Tom Chiapel and during this time she had made several poor decisions. It seemed that Chiapel had gotten Williams to pose nude in a series of black and white photographs. Several featured her in leather bondage gear, while others were of a naked Williams and another woman together in suggestive poses that suggested lesbianism. The photos had fallen into the hands of Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse magazine, who had plans to feature them in an upcoming issue, but not after Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy, turned them down first. Later Hefner would explain why in People Weekly. "Vanessa Williams is a beautiful woman. There was never any question of our interest in the photos. But they clearly weren't authorized and because they would be the source of considerable embarrassment to her, we decided not to publish them. We were also mindful that she was the first black Miss America."

When Miss America officials learned of this situation, they were upset to say the least. The pageant had strict rules about such things and they apparently felt deceived because Williams failed to disclose this information to them beforehand. Upon hearing the news, Pageant Chairman Albert Marks Jr. called on Williams to resign her crown within seventy-two hours. He later stated in People Weekly his disgust with the situation. "As a man, a father, a grandfather, as a human being, I have never seen anything like these photographs. Ugh. I can't even show them to my wife."

In the meantime, Williams was weighing her options and getting legal advice about what to do next. She felt bad for her family, telling The Black CollegianPeople Weekly. Williams seemed to have that sentiment in mind and retaliated by threatening to sue the publisher for $400 million, but later relented when she realized that she was fighting a losing battle. On July 23, 1984, Williams resigned her title well within Albert Marks' timeframe and Suzette Charles was called up to fulfill the remainder of Williams' duties for the next seven weeks. Upon stepping down, Williams was quoted in People Weekly at her press conference: "I am not a person who gives up...It has never been my desire to injure the Miss America Pageant...I must relinquish my title." Still, Williams walked away with her scholarship money, appearance fees, and the actual crown, but was forced to surrender her endorsement deals, including lucrative opportunities with the Gillette company and Kellogg's. A contract to write her autobiography was also torn up.

In the end, it seemed that the only winner in the whole messy situation was Bob Guccione. The issue of Penthouse that featured Williams' photos would go on to be a complete sell-out, making Guccione over $4 million more than he did for an average month of magazine sales. Still, Guccione felt that the incident could benefit Williams in the long run. "I can't give you the name of a single former Miss America, and beautiful women are my business. Okay, Bess Myerson comes to mind. But Vanessa Williams will never be forgotten," he stated in People Weekly.


"When I told my parents, those were uncontrollable tears. I told them I was sorry. Because of mistakes...I was going to cause them a lot of sadness." Williams blamed a youthful naivete for her actions and claimed that Chiapel had deceived her, promising never to release the pictures and even telling her that he had destroyed them along with the negatives. In addition, she insisted that she had never signed a release form for the photographs to be published. Bob Guccione disagreed and claimed to have the appropriate form with Williams' signature (which was analyzed by several handwriting experts) as proof. "I would never publish a photograph of a girl without a release. Otherwise, they would take me to the cleaners," he told

Williams Starts Over

With her career at a crossroads, Williams turned to her family, legal team and publicist Ramon Hervey II for advice. Hervey would prove to play an instrumental part in her rebirth, offering her words of encouragement and telling her to focus on what got her noticed in the first place: her talent. Williams responded, by concentrating on her singing career and landing parts in movies like The Pick-Up Artist and Under the Gun. In the process, Williams and Hervey fell in love and were married in January of 1987. The couple moved to Hollywood, California, soon thereafter. Later that year, Williams and Hervey would have their first child, a daughter named Melanie Lynne.

By 1988, Williams had recorded her first album, entitled The Right Stuff. The record was released to critical and public acclaim and rocketed up the charts. The album's title track and another song, "He's Got the Look," became top-five smashes and Williams received three Grammy Award nominations for her efforts. This high-profile comeback earned Williams a NAACP Award for Best New Artist and led to a gig as a co-host on the television special Showtime at the Apollo. Williams could not be happier about her turnaround, telling Ebony her feelings about her past: "I'm just moving on, for there is nothing I can do to change that, so I just have to deal with it and move on. If situations arose where I could get revenge, I absolutely would. But at this point, success is the best revenge."

Over the next few years, Williams would appear in films like Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, as well as television movies like "Stompin' At the Savoy" and "The Jacksons: An American Story." In 1991, she released her sophomore album, The Comfort Zone, which yielded the number one song "Save the Best for Last" and other solid tracks like "Work to Do." The same year Williams and Hervey had another daughter, Jillian, followed by a son, Devin, in 1993. These two additions prompted the family to move back to New York to be closer to Williams' family.

A big breakthrough for Williams came in 1994, when she landed the title role in the Broadway production of Kiss of the Spider Woman. "It's a fantastic role for me because I get a chance to do a little drama, a little comedy, a lot of dancing and a lot of singing. I enjoy playing characters. It's a lot easier for me to delve into character and perform as somebody else," she stated in Jet. Also in 1994, Williams released her third album, The Sweetest Days, which included the hit songs 'Betcha Never' and 'You Can't Run." The album title seemed to be a direct statement about Williams' happiness and life philosophy. With her string of successes, she was finally able to put her controversial past behind her and be judged strictly for her talent. "These are my sweetest days. Absolutely. I think with three wonderful kids, a beautiful, hard-working marriage and having a career that I'm in almost full control of, is certainly the best time for me," she told Jet. Things certainly seemed that way as Williams' hot streak continued when she performed the Academy Award winning song 'Color of the Wind' on the soundtrack for Disney's Pocohantas.

Continues to Grow

Unfortunately, Williams' happy times were not without some painful ones. In 1996, she and Hervey decided to divorce. This decision was complicated, but in the end, Williams felt it was all for the best. "At first, I felt relieved, sad, and lonely, then peaceful, settled, strong, and optimistic," she told Cosmopolitan. "I was looking forward to a life that was drama-free, to getting out of the anxiety and hell I was going through. The toughest part was thinking I'd be viewed as a failure, knowing that it was going to be hard on me and my family. It takes a lot of courage to follow your heart," she added. Williams continued to move on with her career, costarring with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action film Eraser. Williams and Schwarzenegger hit it off on the set of the film and realized that they had a lot in common. "Arnold said to me, 'Your career is very similar to mine because people didn't take us seriously at first. They knew us for our bodies, Mr. Universe and Miss America, and they had no idea what we really wanted to do with our lives, so they wrote us off. You showed them that you have guts.' And he admired that, because he loves strong women," Williams recalled in Ebony.

After Eraser, Williams would continue to be seen in films like Soul Food, Hoodlum and the remake of Shaft with Samuel L. Jackson. She would also release more music including the 1997 album Next. But Williams seemed to derive the most happiness from her three children. She immersed herself in their lives and took joy in performing normal motherly chores like carpooling and attending music recitals. She had little time for romance. A relationship with screenwriter Christopher Solimine, whom she met while filming the television miniseries "The Odyssey," was short-lived. At the time, Williams told Ebony, "In my personal life, I just want less drama. I want someone who is going to cherish me. That's what I'm looking for."

Finds New Love

Williams would soon get her wish. In 1998 she met basketball player Rick Fox. A star with the Los Angeles Lakers, Fox had been a fan of Williams for some time and had admitted to friends and family that he had a secret crush on the entertainer. "She was my first representation of a Black American woman. I never thought I might marry her one day. I was really just a fan who appreciated her music and her work," Fox told Essence. He continued: "She was a strong, beautiful, American woman. I thought if that's what America had to offer, I hoped to someday marry someone like that." The couple had a few chance meetings, including one at Fox's birthday party, and soon their romance began to bloom. Fox pursued her relentlessly and despite Williams' apprehensions towards relationships and the fact that Fox was six years younger than her, things began to move forward.

By 1999, Williams and Fox were married, but their relationship was a unique one. Because the Lakers were based in Los Angeles, Fox spent most of his time either on the West coast or traveling while Williams stayed in New York to work on her career and raise her family, which now included Fox's son Kyle from a previous relationship. Still, things worked out and on May 1, 2000, the couple welcomed their daughter Sasha Gabriella into their family.

Despite the ups and downs of her life, Williams remains the ultimate survivor. "As much tragedy and scandal as I've had in my life, I've also been very fortunate. I feel truly blessed. I love my kids, I love my husband and I love my work. That supersedes all my struggles," she remarked in Essence.

SOURCE CITATION

Notable Black American Women, Book 3. Gale Group, 2002.