"Men were attracted to Dinah. Women were attracted to her, too .... A girl one night in a club was sticking her tongue out at Dinah and me. She wanted to go home with Dinah. It wasn't anything much. People in show business lived like that" Eddie Chamblee confessed. I think it's safe to say that Chamblee, Dinah Washington's fifth legal husband, was one of her favorites. They still remained fond of each other even after she cursed him out on the stage of a nightclub and smashed his saxophone against the wall for "making her look bad." That scenario was the final nail in the coffin of their marriage, but what reason would he have to malign her name? He loved the chaos as much as she did.
Washington and Chamblee were married on the stage of the Royal Casino nightclub in Washington, D.C. in 1959.
Comedian Slappy White acted as the best man and child performer and future singing diva, Patti Austin acted as the ring bearer. Reports say that the newlyweds performed a midnight show at the club and then called it a night. When they got back to their hotel room, they were startled to find a woman laying in the bed waiting for them. "We knew her. I didn't care" Chamblee confided to a reporter some thirty years later. Apparently, Dinah didn't care either.
Chamblee neglected to divulge any more info, so I guess we'll have to use our imaginations as to what happened next. But who was the woman?
When I was an autograph seeking teenager working in a record store, a casual acquaintance that I used to see backstage at all the concerts dropped in to tell me a story that she'd recently heard about Lola Falana and Dinah Washington. If my memory serves me correct, she got it from someone that she was "seeing" in Teddy Pendergrass' inner circle, and it was delivered to her and then to me most matter-of-factly as gospel. But when I approached a certain biographer with the story, she told me that she had never heard anything about it, and asked me why I would want to spend time and energy on gossip for what seemed to be a purpose of sensationalism. My answer was because Dinah Washington created and thrived on gossip in the press and it is an undeniable part of her legend, and this the biographer knows quite well. So, can we talk?
I wish I could remember every single detail but she told me that Diana Ross (right) and Lola Falana (below) were involved in a sexual tryst gone wrong back in the very early 60's when Falana used to work for Ross. She said Ross gave Falana her start in show business. Like you, I was quite startled and confused. Knowing the history of The Boss at Motown, I knew it wasn't true. It suddenly clicked that perhaps she had confused Washington with Ross because of the similarities of their first and last names. I can't tell you how many times I've heard Dinah Washington referred to as DIANA Washington. It made even more sense when I later found out that Dinah Washington was actually the first to put Lola Falana on stage dancing in her revue. Today, Sammy Davis Jr. is credited for Falana's discovery while Washington has all but been erased from the bio.
The gossip was that Dinah came back to her room after a show and found Lola in the bed and they decide to get it on but things got quickly out of hand because one of the two of them had a toe fetish and one of the two of them bit the other so viciously that someone was sent to the hospital with a mangled toe. Another version of the story is that Washington bit a plug out of Falana's ankle.
I recently reconnected with the woman who told me this and so far, she has refused to answer any of my correspondence on the matter. She wants to forget it but I can never forget it especially when I heard it again some years later from someone else who worked in the camp of another very famous but now deceased black male singer. I just thought that was so amazing and hearing it again was never too much!
"Have you ever fucked a woman" Dinah reportedly asked Dorothy Anderson, trumpeter "Cat" Anderson's wife. The two were used to sharing the same bed during the early days of travel with the Lionel Hampton band. "NO" Dorothy shot back. "And YOU better turn over and go to sleep" she quickly replied. Was Dinah just being outrageous or did she really want to taste her some Dorothy? Who cares and why?
Many of the greatest, most famous African American Divas were either lesbian or bisexual and not to talk about that aspect of their lives is to not talk about the whole of who they were. Consider Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith or Carmen McCrae. We say it's nobody's business as if it's something to be ashamed of or that talking about it will somehow tarnish their image. Rubbish! Like Eddie Chamblee basically said - it is what it is!
Dinah's gone so what does Lola Falana have to say about it? Probably nothing! She's too much of a class act to dignify idle gossip. On the other hand, since she's found religion and renounced her former life as an entertainer, it's not likely she'll have much to say about anything - and that's a shame! Until then, what do you have to say about it? Chile, what have YOU heard?
Wow. I don't know why I never thought of Queen Dinah as being part of that wonderful club of Lesbian/Bisexual female entertainers. And it makes perfect sense that she was. I guess when you have that bigger than life personality (especially if you're a woman) it makes you prone to seek bigger thrills and you can't defer to men--you can't be satisfied with "normality"...I guess.
Why isn't it the same for the male entertainers? Or is it?
And the story about the toe/ankle is hilarious. I guess you could honestly explain to the doctor, "well, doc, I got bit by a bitch."
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | January 10, 2012 at 04:37 PM