Was Diana Ross’ Fame The Cause Of Her Brother’s & His Wife’s Murder?

[milven]

This article says that many who knew them say T-Boy took Diana’s fame and living in her shadow extremely hard and that he often displayed signs of jealously toward his big sister’s success, although they both loved each other very much.

While Diana had a glorious career and had worldwide fame, he was a songwriter who became bitter and angry when he never quite made it, turning instead to drink and drugs. At times he was insanely jealous of her success . . . and she had dreaded his premature death all her adult life.

It seems that T-Boy was one of those people who blames everyone but himself for his failures. Instead of making things happen and taking advantage of opportunities being made for him by Diana when it was seen that he couldn't - or wouldn't - create his own opportunities, he placed the blame for his failure on Diana.

Diana has a very successful sister in the medical field They both made things happen and became successful. They didn't spend time being negative and blaming each other for any setbacks that they may have had. Instead, they moved forward, stayed positive and created opportunities and were prepared when opportunities were made from them. That is how to be successful.

Diana’s success could have been too much for him to bear, especially since he knew he had a great deal of talent as well. But more than talent is needed to become a success.

People can miss opportunities when they allow bitterness, or envy to eat them alive.

I think T-Boy was one of those people.

Full article is here:

http://www.iloveoldschoolmusic.com/w...-his-jealousy/

[Bluebrock]

Not sure that I like this article. I don't think there is anything to gain by dredging up these old stories. I am not blaming you for this milven. You merely alerted us to the story. It's a thumbs down from me.

[kenneth]

I thought it was interesting without being sensational or jumping to criticism of Diane, except for possibly stating what Arthur's viewpoint might have been.

I have his album but don't think I have ever played it. I've heard it's very good though. Has anyone listened to it that can comment?

[RobertZ]

It is an interesting story, and of course a tragic one. Many famous people have siblings who lose their way [[as do many non-famous people). The title of the article [[and to be honest, this post) are sensationalistic; the title should be "Was Diana Ross' Brother's Jealousy ...". I did not hear the T Boy album; was it "I Want You" that he co-wrote?

[captainjames]

Barbara and Rita are doing well for themselves as well. I have not kept up to Fred and Chico. T-Boy was a good songwriter, if memory serves me right he co-wrote "I want You" the Marvin Gaye classic. Doors may have been open for him because of Diana at Motown but I can't say that for sure. We are all responsible for our own choices in life and what we do with them we can't blame them on anyone else. I remember hearing of his death and it seems to me they found the killers because I believe Rita attended the hearings.

[milven]

I saw this story on line today and I think it is current although I see no date on it. I made the title of this post the same as the article, but you are right Robert Z. It would have been better to use" Was Diana Ross' Brother's Jealousy ...".

I don't regard the article as negative about Diana, in fact , just the opposite. Diana's other siblings did well. I think Tito was just another person who found it easier to blame Diana for his failures and for his lack of aggressiveness to make things happen. When his career failed, it was easier for him to blame her rather than look in the mirror to see who really caused his failure. It is sad, but it happens in many families, not just families of famous personalities. Thankfully, he didn't try to cash in writing a book about her.

[marybrewster]

Here's an article from SDF archives, posted back in 2010; I don't know the original source, but perhaps this sheds a little more light on Diana's relationship with her brother. IMO he made his own bed; other siblings didn't have many difficulties succeeding in their sister's "shadow". Truth told, every family has a "T-Boy".

DIANA ROSS didn't attend the funeral of her brother Arthur, murdered in a drugs-related robbery in a run-down district of Detroit.

Instead, she sent her 24-year-old daughter Tracey Joy to read a poignant message to the gathering of 150 people at the Greater Grace Temple at the family's home city ofDetroit, Michigan.

In it, the 52-year-old multi-millionairess, one of the last of the great pop superstars, wrote of her `utter devastation' and `my broken heart'. She is said to be consumed with guilt and grief.

But Diana's letter could not properly explain the depth of feeling between brother and sister, blacks from the poor side of town who came to lead such extraordinarily different lives.

While she had a glorious 35-year career and amassed a [pounds sterling]50 million fortune, had worldwide fame and 150 hit records, he was a songwriter who became bitter and angry when he never quite made it, turning instead to drink and drugs. At times he was insanely jealous of her success . . . and she had dreaded his premature death all her adult life.

Ten days ago his body was found bound and gagged alongside that of his wife Patricia in a rented apartment in downtown Detroit, apparent victims of a drug-related robbery which turned into murder.

Diana, the loving big sister who had tried in vain for years to help him conquer his self-destructive streak, was doubly horrified when she learned that Arthur's body had lain undiscovered for three weeks and was badly decomposed. She had loved him `very, very much', she said in the message read by Tracey.

`Why?' was her first heart-rending question. `It is so hard to understand. Why did you make the choices that you made in your life?

`It breaks my heart that someone like you, with so much life to live, should be taken like this. I cannot blame you for your imperfections. You were such a beautiful boy, a beautiful smile and beautiful eyes. Such spirit and yet so mischievous.'

And while Diana, on a Japanese tour, sat in her plush Tokyo hotel room and composed the line which blamed the tragedy on the `drug-infested world of today', it might also have crossed her mind that the reasons for his death at 47 could have been closer to home.

Friends say Diana is torturing herself with guilt over her brother's ugly life. A close relative said: `She is trying to cope for the rest of the family but she is finding it extremely difficult. She is haunted still by the death of Flo Ballard [[the Supremes star who died of drink and drugs). Arthur's death has put Diana in a state of shock. She was devoted to him.'

WHILE Diana went to great lengths to provide him with an opening to stardom, their relationship was one based on contradictions since her every public achievement cut him to the quick.

He never really forgave her, for example, for leaving Detroit, since her departure became a catalyst for the legendary Tamla Motown records moving out of the city. For struggling black songwriters in Detroit, Tamla had been their way out of poverty.

Arthur clearly blamed Diana, now married to Norwegian shipping magnate Arnie Naess. And yet Diana had a similar start in life to Arthur.

They were both born into poverty, along with four other brothers and sister, on the infamous Brewster housing estate on the east side of the city.

And while Diana knows she was the one with the strength of character to fight her way out, she is also painfully aware that she had a massively lucky break at the age of 16 with Motown and The Supremes, the group which gave her hits such as Where Did Our Love Go? and Baby Love and led to a film career with her portrayal of Billie Holliday in Lady Sings The Blues.

The great irony was that, like her, Arthur had talent, though clearly not the same drive and energy.

He wrote Marvin Gaye's hit I Want You along with songs for Michael Jackson, The Miracles and even Madonna. But it was never enough. His own solo record with Motown flopped 20 years ago, selling only 12,000 copies because he released it under a nickname rather than the Ross surname, which would have linked him with Diana.

`He could never measure up,' says Ajene Smith, a close friend of Arthur's since his schooldays. `You don't realise how he made himself suffer. He was playing out the role of the black sheep of the family and he played it out to the end. Maybe that is the only way he knew to get away from his sister's shadow.'

The jealousy began privately in childhood in the scrublands of Detroit, where he used to hang out with his gang and was nicknamed T-Bone after his love of steak, a name which became T-Boy as a spiteful joke. He was also known from the age of 11 as brother of `one of The Supremes' and he grew to loathe it.

BUT in public, in the early days at least, he and

his family were content to wallow in the glow of Diana's phenomenal success.

And as a big sister, she was always generous towards him.

Arthur told a friend, lawyer John Mackay, that Diana would line up her brothers and sisters and other relatives backstage after a concert and hand them all white envelopes containing money. And by the time Arthur was a teenager, the Rosses had moved to the tree-lined Russell Woods neighbourhood. It was Diana's money that financed Arthur's school and university education.

As a 20-year-old student he was involved in a fracas with a policeman in Alabama, which ended with the officer firing a shot that whistled inches past Arthur's face. A high-powered lawyer, paid for by Diana, managed to get the charges dropped.

There was a short stint as a high school teacher, and then it was Diana again who opened doors at Motown to get Arthur his own recording contract.

It was a path that was to lead Arthur to his downfall.

He thought he wasn't getting the respect he deserved from his peers. He began feuding with Diana. He accused Marvin Gaye of stealing his music. Then he fell out with Motown and Diana sided with her record label against her brother. His friend Ajene said: `He loved to play the big man, telling strangers, `You don't know who I am.' But then Arthur would as easily bore friends with the complaint, `Nobody does actually know who I am. To everyone, I am just Diana Ross's brother'.'

In the end, after Diana had `given up' on her brother, his absence was obviously still a loss to her. At the lavish family dinners laid on by the star at her multi-million pound Connecticut mansion, Arthur was always absent.

He seems to have had one last hope - for a while it appeared to Diana and the rest of the family that Arthur's second wife, Patricia, 54, whom he married 10 months ago in Las Vegas, could halt the tailspin. She was very different from the younger women he usually dallied with.

THE day after his body was found, Arthur had been

due in court on drug and gun charges. Detectives had picked him up in his car with bags of heroin, cocaine and marijuana and a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic pistol. Arthur told officers he was intending to trade the drugs for sex at a party.

He was also in town to pick up a royalty cheque. One theory is that the couple were robbed of the royalties and then choked to death by the thieves.

No one knows what they were doing in the house in the rundown Oak Park district where they were found, and nobody reported them missing.

The tenants who rented the dilapidated home, Ricky Brooks, 44, who has a criminal record for armed robbery, theft and burglary, and Regina Smith, 36, are both still being hunted by police.

Now full of grief, Diana has personally called the incident room to check on the progress of the inquiry. She has hired O. J. Simpson's lawyer Robert Shapiro to liaise with the murder squad and now the family has put up a [pounds sterling]20,000 reward for information about his death.

She had earlier warned her family she was afraid her appearance would turn last Monday's ceremony into a media circus. Arthur would still have been in her shadow at his own funeral.

And that, she knew, would posthumously inflict a cruel irony on the brother who lived his life in a self-destructive jealous rage over her enormous success. `I couldn't do that to little T-Bone, could I,' she told them.

[BayouMotownMan]

First of all, I have T-Boys lp which I think came out on CD overseas a couple years ago. It is horrifically bad, he has no singing voice, no range, no soul...nothing. He had success as a songwriter, I Want You [[which he covers, terribly) and I Wanna Be Where You Are. He specifically thanks his sister on the back of the lp. He was a good looking man [[in 1979 at least). It is obvious to anyone that this was done by BG to make Diana happy because T Boy saw himself as a performer, which he clearly was not. Motown did no promotion on the lp and few heard it. Many reviews were brutal.

To blame Diana Ross, or ANY ONE, for the death of someone else is truly cruel. To even suggest such a thing is inappropriate. T Boy's manner of murder speaks for itself. Diana has helped her siblings out many times but when someone is this out of control, you have to use a tough love after a while. She was in no way responsible for this.

[milven]

As stated above, there is a T-Boy in every family. After being enabled continuously and seeing no results, it is time to give tough love. You gotta love someone a whole lot to give tough love because it hurts so much to give it. It doesn't always work, but it often does.

[Mark Desjardines]

BayouMotownMan, I agree with you fully regarding the quality of T-Boy's solo Motowm album. I purchased a sealed copy of this vinyl album shortly after it's release in Los Angeles for 99 cents. There were several copies in the record shop and they had already had a bullethole shot through the jacket. My first reaction to hearing "I Want You" by T-Boy was that he was getting out of breath halfway through the song and the female chorus was taking over. The rest of the album didn't fare much better, but the lyrics to some of his songs were quite good.

At this time, I am reading Jan Gaye's biography, "After the Dance [[My Life with Marvin Gaye). She recounts hearing the Leon Ware / T-Boy Ross compositions that Berry Gordy deemed good enough to build upon for Marvin Gaye's "After The Dance" album, when he had no fresh material or inspiration of his own to record. Berry was very wise indeed to recognize the strength of this material and promised Leon Ware the chance to record his own material, but only after Marvin had the first crack. T-Boy seemed to be third in line because of his family connection.

T-Boy was lucky indeed that his song writing ability gave him a good income over the years that he was able to enjoy it. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that Diana would record that song, and I am so happy she did, as her version stands up quite well to Marvin's. No doubt this is a painful chapter in the Ross family history.

[RobertZ]

First of all, I have T-Boys lp which I think came out on CD overseas a couple years ago. It is horrifically bad, he has no singing voice, no range, no soul...nothing. He had success as a songwriter, I Want You [[which he covers, terribly) and I Wanna Be Where You Are. He specifically thanks his sister on the back of the lp. He was a good looking man [[in 1979 at least). It is obvious to anyone that this was done by BG to make Diana happy because T Boy saw himself as a performer, which he clearly was not. Motown did no promotion on the lp and few heard it. Many reviews were brutal.

To blame Diana Ross, or ANY ONE, for the death of someone else is truly cruel. To even suggest such a thing is inappropriate. T Boy's manner of murder speaks for itself. Diana has helped her siblings out many times but when someone is this out of control, you have to use a tough love after a while. She was in no way responsibe for this.

Lots of good posts here but I'm using this one as my "reply" due to the wise, and well written, last sentence. I worked in the garment industry in NY for decades and at one point Ms. Ross also financed a garment line of "sliced" t-shirts of her brother's design. I probably read about it in WWD. I don't know what became of the line. It's been my opinion for many, many years that Ms. Ross has deep wells of emotion about her success - not "guilt" in the sense of doing something wrong, but sadness that those she loved did not have her drive.

[BayouMotownMan]

T-Boy was lucky indeed that his song writing ability gave him a good income over the years that he was able to enjoy it. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that Diana would record that song, and I am so happy she did, as her version stands up quite well to Marvin's. No doubt this is a painful chapter in the Ross family history.[/QUOTE]

Was Diana's version of I Want You ever released? Did I miss it?

[milven]

Was Diana's version of I Want You ever released? Did I miss it?

[jobeterob]

It's on the album I Love You.

Jealousy is a killer.

There are a few terribly jealous people on here that wallow in their jealousy.

[Ollie9]

This is terrific. The promo is very simple yet it really works. What a shame it was never released as a single. I think it might have done well given a funky remix.
As regards T.Boy, being Diana's brother he was given a lot of opportunities in his career by her and others that he might otherwise never have had. Reading about his life, he does seem to have exhibited rather self -destructive tendencies throughout. As is so often the case, it is most hard on the loved ones left behind.

[midnightman]

I loved Diana's cover of I Want You.

That said, T Boy's death had a lot to do with a possible bad drug deal [[T Boy was heavily addicted to crack at the time from what I read). He had tried rehab [[which Diana paid for) but failed to kick his habit and soon he shunned himself from everyone in his immediate circle [[all family members, friends, etc.).

Diana loved her brother very much, I doubt her fame had to do with his death.

[RobertZ]

I loved Diana's cover of I Want You.

That said, T Boy's death had a lot to do with a possible bad drug deal [[T Boy was heavily addicted to crack at the time from what I read). He had tried rehab [[which Diana paid for) but failed to kick his habit and soon he shunned himself from everyone in his immediate circle [[all family members, friends, etc.).

Diana loved her brother very much, I doubt her fame had to do with his death.

Great post, elegantly worded.