Diana Ross

Diana Ross (born Diane Ernestine Earle Ross) is a twelve-time Grammy and Oscar-nominated American singer, record producer and actress, whose musical repertoire spans R&B, soul, pop, disco, and jazz. During the 1960s, she shaped the sound of popular music and Motown Records as front women of The Supremes before leaving for a solo career in the beginning of the following decade.

During the 1970's and into the early to mid 1980's, Ross became the most successful female artist of the rock era, while crossing over into film, television and Broadway winning a Tony Award for her one-woman show, An Evening with Diana Ross in 1977, and being nominated for twelve Grammy Awards and an Academy Award for Best Actress for her 1972 role as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues. She was also recently honored by The Kennedy Center.

In 1976, Billboard magazine named her the female entertainer of the century. Guinness World Records declared Diana Ross as the most successful female music artist of the 20th century with a total of eighteen American number-one singles: twelve as lead singer of The Supremes and six as a solo artist. Ross was the first female solo artist to score six number-ones. She is also one of the few artists to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—one as a solo artist and the other as a member of the Supremes.

Including her work with the Supremes, Ross has recorded over thirty studio albums. In 1999, as a solo artist, she was ranked #38 on VH1's "The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll", while The Supremes ranked #16.