Mary Wilson Selling House in Vegas to Settle in L.A. to Study Acting
Las Vegas’ last Supreme, Mary Wilson, is moving to L.A. for what?
By DOUG ELFMAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Mary Wilson of the Supremes has lived in Las Vegas since the 1980s, but her plan to headline a regular Vegas residency eluded her, so she’s moving to L.A. to study acting with one of Halle Berry’s coaches.
This makes me even happier that I saw Wilson when I could, when she sang a great set of classics for last year’s One Drop charity. Wilson will also perform this Saturday and Sunday at the Suncoast Showroom.
“I’m trying to sell my house now,” Wilson said. “I wanted to work here, and settle here, because I’ve been traveling since 1963. I’ve been touring all that time.”
Wilson, 70, just finished a 10-day tour of Florida — and that was after touring Europe with the Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman.
She wants to cut back on traveling for a reason we can all relate to: “Going through security at airports these days is horrible.”
I asked what price tag she placed on her fancy Anthem home [[“What do I have to give you to buy your house?”), but she only joked: “Money!” And we laughed, because who has Money?
Wilson said it has been a compliment whenever people [[like me) have asked when she’s going to do a reunited-with-Diana-Ross show on the Strip because it’s a reminder of the impact of the Supremes.
“For 50-some years, I’ve been in the business. So when people want to know what’s going on in your life, and they want to hear your music, it’s a great tribute,” she said.
“I don’t mind that they want us to get back together. It possibly can’t [[happen) because Florence [[Ballard, the other original Supreme) is no longer alive, and Diana is a wonderful superstar, so she doesn’t want to look back.”
I told Wilson I never know when her relationship with Ross is “up or down.”
But Wilson said there is no “up or down” with Ross despite what we conflict-lovers in the media have said over time.
“We’ve just kind of gone our different ways. There’s no reason or blow-out. We’ve had a couple of little things, but they weren’t really major in terms of us.”
Wilson almost landed a Vegas residency last year, but “something happened,” she said without elaborating.
What will she miss from Vegas?
“The Strip,” she said. “The only thing that’s really great for me is the Strip. Because other than that, it’s not L.A. It’s not Hollywood. I lived in Hollywood for years and years, and New York.”
But then, Wilson thought about that answer and amended it:
“After traveling and coming home, being able to come here at Anthem Country Club, and have a golf course right here, that was very comforting to me because I could hide here. I like that about Vegas.”
I told her Santana told me, a few years ago, that he got a house here partly because of Nevada’s low taxes.
“Let me tell you, that definitely was one of the pulls here for me, years ago, but I’ve kind of forgotten about it because I’ve been here so long. But he’s right about that,” Wilson said.
She lived in Hollywood in the late 1960s.
“Me and Cindy Birdsong [[another Supreme) — we were the first people from Motown who moved out there. I raised children there. I had many homes there,” she said.
“I always go to Los Angeles for my doctor appointments, all my beauty appointments, everything.”
She is taking acting classes from Margie Haber, whose clients have included Berry and Mariska Hargitay.
Wilson has acted on stage and even off-Broadway, but she has been touring the world so long, she hasn’t had a chance to stop and study acting — “and I believe in studying.”
Her shows this weekend will be “up-up-up, and I’ll be moving really fast, and I’ll be dressed in gorgeous gowns.”
She hopes locals go see about her, as well as tourists:
“I’ve lived in three houses here in Vegas over the years, so I’m looking for all my neighbors!”
http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns...moving-la-what
