Diana Ross (born Diana Ernestine Earle Ross, March 26, 1944) is an American entertainer and actress. She rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown’s most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world’s best-selling girl groups of all time. They remain the best-charting female group in history,[2] with a total of twelve number-one hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, including “Where Did Our Love Go”, “Baby Love”, “Come See About Me”, and “Love Child”.
Following departure from the Supremes in 1970, Ross embarked on a successful solo career in music, film, television and on stage. Her eponymous debut solo album featured the U.S. number-one hit “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and music anthem “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)”. It was followed with her second solo album, Everything Is Everything, which spawned her first UK number-one single “I’m Still Waiting”. She continued her successful solo career by mounting elaborate record-setting world-wide concert tours, starring in a number of highly watched prime-time television specials, and releasing hit albums like Touch Me in the Morning (1973), Mahogany (1975), and Diana Ross (1976).
Ross has also acted. Her first role was her Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Billie Holiday in the film Lady Sings the Blues (1972); she also recorded its soundtrack, which became a number one hit on the U.S. album chart. She also starred in two other feature films, Mahogany (1975) and The Wiz (1978), and later appeared in the television films Out of Darkness (1994), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and Double Platinum (1999).
In 1988, Ross was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Supremes. The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes her as the greatest female artist in U.S. and U.K. chart history, with a career total of 70 hit singles. She was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.