More Precious Than ‘Platinum’

She had just settled herself on the zebra-print love seat of her Manhattan pied-a-terre, surrounded by plush, oversized pillows, Andy Warhol paintings and panoramic views, when her cell phone rang and a plaintive voice pierced the cosmopolitan splendor.

“Mommy?” a congested kid asked the woman more commonly known as Diana Ross. “Um, when’re you coming home?”

“I should be finished here in about an hour and then I’m driving straight home after that, OK? OK, honey?” Ross had to sing above the static.

“I think I’m losing my voice,” her younger son, 10-year old Evan, almost cried.

“I’ll be home just as soon as I can,” Ross reassured him as their connection began to break up. “I love you. . . . Evan? Hello?”

She may be recording her 62nd album, preparing to go on tour, and co-producing the upcoming TV movie “Double Platinum,” in which she also happens to co-star. But even divas seem to be plagued by the prosaic demands of parenthood. In deference to Evan’s cold, for example, Ross had tried to rearrange her schedule on a day that began with an unplanned 8 a.m. visit to the doctor. Later, prompted by her son’s call, Ross segued into the obvious parallels between “Double Platinum,” which airs Sunday night on ABC as part of the network’s major sweeps movies, and her own life.

“That’s what this movie is about, you know? It’s family versus career,” she said as she set the cell phone within reach. “It’s constant. It’s constant. It’s been like this since I started having children, and my oldest daughter is now 27. . . . It’s complicated, and you try to keep your priorities in the right place.”

Ross apparently has managed to do just that, in contrast to her “Double Platinum” character, a fictional singer named Olivia King. In the movie, King leaves her infant daughter and unsupportive husband to pursue what turns out to be a wildly successful career. Eighteen years later, she is reunited with the musical Kayla--played by “Moesha” star Brandy--and repents by becoming her professional mentor. The movie aims to explore not only the contemporary dilemma of family versus career but, as Ross shaped her character, the classic question of how one makes big decisions and then faces their consequences. It also offers seven big songs and plenty of old-fashioned melodrama in what might be described as a quintessential “Stella Dallas”-style chick flick.

Ross’ Family-Related Demands Affected Costs

In real life, the former Supreme and her colleagues quickly say, Ross is a doting mother who has passed on many projects and reorganized others for the sake of family life. On this harried day, for example, despite meticulously applied eyeliner and masses of wavy black hair, she is dressed down in mom-wear--a gray, long-sleeved T-shirt, baggy pants and flat boots. Nodding at one framed photo after another in the lavishly decorated apartment, she described her five children in analytic detail: Rhonda, the eldest, whose father is Motown founder Berry Gordy, is an “incredibly smart, wise, intuitive girl” who cherishes her independence. Now an actress on the soap opera “Another World,” Rhonda once begged her mother not to visit at gymnastics camp, Ross recalled, so the other kids would like her for herself “and not because I’m Diana Ross’ daughter.” Unlike Olivia King’s stage management of Kayla, Ross said she has largely left Rhonda and her younger daughters to their own devices.

Tracee, 25, born during Ross’ marriage to lawyer Robert Silberstein, is the most organized of the brood, who helped her mother pack for tours and tried her hand at modeling and magazine editing before turning to acting in independent films. Chudnee, 22, also the daughter of Silberstein, is “a magnificent, loving child” who often acted as the peacemaker between her squabbling older sisters and now teaches in Los Angeles public schools.

Ross, 11, the first son of her current, 13-year marriage to Norwegian businessman Arne Naess (the couple have recently separated and say they will file for divorce), is a fussy eater who wants to go to sleep-away camp for the first time. Boys seem so much more dependent on their mothers than girls do, Ross observed. And youngest child Evan is an adoring son who likes Quaker oats for breakfast and “sticks to me like glue.”

Ross said she has never, for the record, given up a child, and agreed to do “Double Platinum” because she was fascinated by the kind of woman who, given the right circumstances, could. Referring to her last acting role, in the TV movie “Out of Darkness,” she said: “Every character you play, that doesn’t mean that’s who you are. I played a paranoid schizophrenic and I’m not a schizophrenic and I don’t have any schizophrenics in my family.”

At another point she remarked: “I’d leave my career--I’d leave a man--before I’d leave my children.”

In fact, Ross’ family demands significantly influenced the production of “Double Platinum,” whose resulting $7-million price tag was roughly double that of the typical made-for-TV movie.

For starters, the movie could only be shot within a narrow window in December because Brandy was to begin preparing for a summer singing tour in February and first had to finish the season’s episodes of her UPN comedy series “Moesha.” (And ABC and Columbia TriStar, a “Double Platinum” co-producer, had to pay “Moesha’s” makers an undisclosed sum to make the R&B; singer available.)

But Ross, who spent Thanksgiving performing in Japan, refused to compromise Christmas. She wanted enough days off in advance to be able to shop and otherwise prepare for a holiday extravaganza in which she hosted 35 relatives at her Connecticut estate, including her Norwegian in-laws and her own elderly father. She also wanted to make the movie in New York, rather than Los Angeles, so she could go home each night--a change that not only altered the look and feel of “Double Platinum” but ratcheted up its production costs. (New York is considered such an expensive place to work that most TV movies set there are actually shot in Toronto or Montreal.)

In the end, ABC bent over backward to accommodate the superstar, as well as Brandy, and clinch her participation in a project contrived for mega-ratings during the May sweeps. The movie also has record tie-ins for both singers: Ross’ album-in-the-works, “Everyday Is a New Day,” is scheduled for release by Motown a week before “Double Platinum” is broadcast. Brandy’s latest album, “Never Say Never” (Atlantic), includes a couple of numbers featured on the TV movie.

Movie Designed to Showcase Both Singers

The idea for “Double Platinum” came about 18 months ago when both Ross and Brandy were still represented by International Creative Management (Brandy has since switched to United Talent Agency). Carrie Stein, who oversees the packaging of TV movies and miniseries for ICM, asked executive producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan to come up with a showcase for both pop icons. The team best known for reviving the musical on TV (“Gypsy,” starring Bette Midler, and “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” which also featured Brandy) had known Ross for a number of years. They knew she had a soft spot for anything involving children, and also knew she was intrigued by the issue of child abandonment. Recent revelations by celebrities such as Joni Mitchell, who gave up a daughter for adoption when she was young and struggling, added a convenient newsy spin, Meron acknowledged, but were not the source of the movie. If anything, Meron said, the Mitchell saga only proved “what a paradigm” the basic plot line was.

Brandy, who is eager to do more serious acting and had always wanted to work with Ross, readily agreed to participate. Ross, however, took some persuading. She liked the idea but wanted to make sure the story was plausible and her character authentic. She closely scrutinized the script, pressing for revisions to make Olivia King more sympathetic. It was Ross’ suggestion, for example, to have King try to contact her daughter over the years only to have her bitter ex-husband withhold her letters and identity. Ross, who won an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in “Lady Sings the Blues,” also reserved the right to ad-lib--mostly, the singer herself explained, to use words that she would use in everyday life.

“Literally a month before they began shooting there was no guarantee Diana would do it,” one production-team insider said.

But Ross liked the work of “Double Platinum” director Robert Allan Ackerman. “I saw some work he had done with Susan Sarandon, and it was brilliant,” she said. Ackerman directed the feature film “Safe Passage,” in which Sarandon starred. And she liked Ackerman himself immediately upon meeting him. (Many years ago, Ackerman recalled, Ross showed her maternal side when they attended a barbecue in the Hamptons and she “just appropriated” his year-old son, Nicholas--diapering, feeding and coddling him for the day.) Meanwhile, ABC was willing to underwrite the unusual production terms so Ross and Brandy could shoot their scenes together quickly, including elaborate musical numbers shot at New York’s famed club the Limelight.

“Normally you need 20 days for a TV movie and that doesn’t include one with six or seven musical numbers, including production and huge audiences,” Ackerman said. “Both women’s schedules only allowed them to be on the set 17 days each, and only 14 days overlapping, and about 90% of the movie is the two of them together, so 90% had to be filmed in 14 days rather than 20, including the musical numbers.”

The set was also unique, Ackerman recalled, because of the double-whammy star appeal of Ross and Brandy. “Everybody working on it at one time or another wanted to bring their children, their friends’ children, their sister’s children . . . because everybody wanted to meet Diana Ross and Brandy,” said Ackerman, who brought along Nicholas, now 22, to see Ross. “Ross’ kids wanted to meet Brandy, and Brandy’s family and friends wanted to meet Diana. And everybody wanted everybody’s autograph.

“There were days when 50 to 60 people were hanging around, and then, in a corner, we’d be shooting the movie.”

Ross Offered ‘Diva Tips’ to Her Young Co-Star

Despite the family-affair atmosphere, Ross was reserved in her advice to her younger co-star. “I hate being in that position,” Ross said. “Even as a parent with my daughters I try not to ‘teach’ them. If I can be a good example, if I can be an example in any way, I do try to do that, but I don’t try to tell people what to do.”

There were a couple of moments, though, when she did offer specific advice, when the restraint of her early Motown training rose up and one generation couldn’t help but put another in its place. Ross, after all, turned 55 in March and maintains a sense of decorum that sometimes has come off as highhandedness.

“I did talk to her about a couple of things, simple little things I learned early on,” Ross said. “Like chewing gum, silly little things like that. It was just very funny because she always had a big wad of green chewing gum that she was chomping on and talking, and I said, ‘You know what? You need to get rid of the chewing gum.’ ”

The gum apparently stuck to the script too, in a scene in which Kayla prepares for an audition at Olivia’s piano. “You chewing gum?” Olivia goads her. “I don’t sing and chew!” Kayla fires back.

Two other Motown rules that Ross said she has never been able to shake are that ladies sit up straight and keep their knees together. She recalled noticing Brandy watching her--rapt, slouching, knees wide apart. “And I looked at her and I did this,” Ross said, briskly pushing her knees together and sitting ramrod straight. “And she went . . . ,” Ross said with a laugh, repeating the action. “I mean, she’s 19 years old. And she’s really quite professional for a 19-year-old and really, I think, has a good head on her shoulders and two incredible parents who really are interested in her career.”

A Harshly Worded Scene, and an Off-Camera Hug

Brandy’s mother and manager, Sonja Norwood, laughingly called Ross’ pointers “the three diva tips” and said, “Brandy has been remembering that every time.” She said her daughter, who just turned 20, still has so much fun with her work she often forgets to act the role of a star. “Between takes she’s just a regular, down-to-earth person who doesn’t really understand what she has accomplished,” said Norwood, who was also one of the movie’s co-producers.

The contrasting styles of Brandy and Ross were evident on the day they shot their most emotionally demanding scenes, at an 1840s clapboard house on Long Island Sound that served as Olivia King’s rustic retreat. As winter light glinted off hand-carved decoys and antique horse tack, Ross barely uttered a word between takes, clearly burrowing into her role. Brandy, meanwhile, bantered happily with just about anyone within earshot, at one point flipping through the pages of a magazine featuring Leonardo DiCaprio.

“Look at Leo!” she squealed, shaking her trademark, cappellini-like braids. “Oh my God, I love Leonardo DiCaprio!”

Despite such girlish pleasures off camera, Brandy proved herself a serious actress, her colleagues said. “She was magic to work with,” said Ackerman, echoing Ross and producers Meron and Zadan. The biggest issue, he said, was getting the naturally ebullient performer to show anger, especially toward an idol like Ross. After one particularly harsh exchange of words between Olivia and Kayla, Norwood recalled, Brandy apologized to Ross--who responded with a hug.

“I think people will be very surprised when they see the movie; people haven’t seen Brandy do this kind of work before. I think she’s going to be a revelation,” Ackerman continued.

“Double Platinum” is the R&B; singer’s third movie but only the fifth for Ross in a long career. That, Ross explained, was the result of pickiness and priorities, of not wanting to work on projects she didn’t deem worth the time away from home.

“I have five children,” Ross said simply. “I have five kids. You know, that’s a big responsibility and commitment, and if you’re going to give your life to something . . . you really want to know it’s something you believe in and you love.”

She paused before reemphasizing, “I didn’t want to do anything frivolous.” And with that, she began packing up her cell phone for the ride back to Connecticut.

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* “Double Platinum” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).