Diana Ross

The secret of Diana Ross' book, "Secrets of a Sparrow," is that--surprise-- there are no secrets. She reveals this startling news herself, as the climax to her 299-page memoir published by Villard this month. It comes in the final line of one of the many Ross-authored poems sprinkled throughout the book. "The secret is, there are no secrets," she writes. In person, Ross delivers the same line on her life and 30 years in show business.

Viewers of the two-hour "VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross" tonight on VH1 will be spared the not-so-exquisite torture of sitting through the five hours it took to cobble together the program in front of a live audience on Sunday night, but this reviewer has never sat through another show that long with less music in all his born days. It's not possible to assess the concert as a live performance, inasmuch as it was performed for videotape and shot out of sequence.

The problem with a lot of Diana Ross' recent albums is that she didn't try hard enough. Instead, she was content to coast on her name and her long track record of hits. The problem with her new album--her first since returning to Motown after a seven-year absence--is that she seems to be trying too hard to sound contemporary and relevant, to beat Janet Jackson and Jody Watley at their own game. The album was produced by Nile Rodgers, who supervised her 1980 smash "Diana."

Being Diana Ross, like being the bearer of a certain plastic card, has its privileges. Thunderous, Vegas-style entrances, for instance-- even when it's to an amphitheater that's only two-thirds full, as was Irvine Meadows Friday night. Ninety-minute performances minus time out for multiple costume changes. Five shimmering new outfits in a recession year.

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?"

Where did their love go? In its concept stages, the reunion tour of the Supremes was seen as a sparkling opportunity to reassemble the most celebrated girl group in pop history. They would wear those dresses again, sing those songs again, and, they just knew, they would fill all those arenas again. Instead, the "Return to Love" tour is a supreme flop, pronounced dead in mid-tour on Monday by its biggest star.

It took Diana Ross to bring class back to TV via "Diana Ross . . . Red Hot Rhythm & Blues." Maybe the music special isn't dead! Steven Blue, Santa Ana

Mary Wilson, one of the three women who soared to stardom as the Supremes, will bring her soulful stylings to Las Vegas ' Suncoast Hotel & Casino on May 11 and 12. More than 50 years have passed since three teenagers growing up in the Detroit projects -- Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, and Wilson -- began singing together. After being signed by Motown Records, they had 12 No. 1 singles between 1964 and 1969. The group's popularity faded with the departure of Diana Ross.