Diana Ross Revisited

Diana Ross is known as much for her unique voice as for her diva attitude.

Ross first made her name with the Supremes -- the real Dreamgirls -- in the 1960s. Forty years later, she is still a force in the music business, despite some well-publicized arrests and other incidents.

The recently released book "Diana Ross: A Biography" by J. Randy Taraborrelli provides an extensive chronicle of the singer's life.

Taraborrelli has been a fan of Ross since he was 12 and founded the first Supremes international fan club. He wrote two other books about Ross, but says his third book is much more sympathetic.

"This was a great opportunity for me to take a look at her sort of as an adult," he told The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen. "My last book came out 18 years ago. Since that time, I've written about Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Madonna and, you know, Michael Jackson. It was an opportunity for me to take a look at Diana from a new perspective. I looked back and looked at my old interviews with her. Interviews with her father, her mother, the other Supremes and put into context her entire life."

He first interviewed Ross when she was 26 and now she is 63. Taraborrelli said she has changed a great deal over the years and this book takes the most balanced look at her life. Now he defends Ross's famed diva behavior because he says it stemmed from fear.

"When she left Motown, in 1980, she did not leave a wealthy woman," he said. "She says she had to pay her taxes by borrowing money at that time in her life. And by that time, she had 18 No. 1 records at Motown. And it's not to say that Motown didn't pay her the money she deserved, it's to say that it wasn't very much money. So when she left the company in the 1980s, she began her own business and she really didn't know what she was doing and I think a lot of that diva behavior we heard about in the 1980s and early 1990s came from her insecurity and fear that she wanted to make sure that she would never end up in that place again in her life."

Ross has been accused of treating people badly -- especially her fellow Supremes. But through his research, Taraborrelli said he found that Ross behaved very selflessly at times. He learned that Ross was the only person who helped former Supreme Florence Ballard when she needed money. Ballard died at the age of 32.

"There were many times over the years I wanted to pull Diana aside and say, 'Listen, you need to defend yourself about these accusations. You have a point of view. You need to tell it,' " said Taraborrelli, who used to work as a publicist for the Supremes. "She's never been the kind of a woman to set the record straight. She's always been the kind of woman to just keep her eye on the prize, on her career, and just move forward and not really respond to criticism. So with this book, I wanted to take a look at it from her point of view. And I think that it's an interesting way to go for a biography and for a third book."

Even though he took a sympathetic look at the singer, Taraborrelli said she didn't collaborate with him because she wasn't very pleased with his last book, "Call Me Miss Ross," which came out 18 years ago.

Although she has had many hits as a solo artist, Ross and the Supremes attempted a reunion tour in 2000. It was cut short. Taraborrelli said Ross and other original Supreme Mary Wilson were not able to see eye to eye about money so Ross recruited two other women who worked with the Supremes in the 1970s after Ross had left. The tour shut down due to poor ticket sales.

"I flew back with the Supremes after closing night. I was able to find that Diana was devastated by that turn of events," Taraborrelli said. "The public felt she was trying to force on them a reunion that was not legitimate. And it really hurt her career."

But last year, Ross came out with her 70th album and it was the top-selling album on the Billboard charts the week it came out. But Taraborrelli says the singer's future is bright.

"Forty-five years of a career of ups and downs and she's really a survivor, you know?" he said. "She survived three books by me so that tells you something."