But it was very rewarding to hear Simon humble himself." "When he appeared, it was just, like, 'Wow!' I didn't know what to expect. As if the success of Dreamgirls wasn't vindication enough, Cowell actually apologised to Hudson on the Oprah Winfrey's Dreamgirls special for getting it so spectacularly wrong. He accused her of looking terrible, over-singing and not having the talent to make it even to the final 12. She also fell victim to Cowell's viperish tongue. "He says I was his favourite out of the whole lot." Oh, he didn't agree with that." She laughs. Elton John held a press conference about it. When I finished seventh it made a serious noise. People expected us to be the final three. I was one of the the "three divas", which included Latoya London and Fantasia Barrino, who went on to win. "I received the biggest reaction to anyone who's ever been eliminated from the show," she says. She didn't win - she finished seventh - but she made more of an impression by getting knocked out early than she would have by finishing, say, third.
#Effie dreamgirls movie
It became, in the words of its eventual director, Bill Condon, "the great unmade movie musical".Ĭondon first became aware of Hudson as one of the contestants on the third season of American Idol. There was also talk of Lauryn Hill playing the Effie role but that also never came to fruition. Whitney Houston was linked to the project in the 1980s but it was never realised - rumour held that the reason was that she wanted to sing both Effie's and Deena's songs. The film has since had several false starts. She died alcoholic and penniless in 1976, aged just 32.Įven though the stage production of Dreamgirls presented an airbrushed version of Ross (the film makes the Supremes link more explicit), the singer was so enraged that any version of these events was being presented that she threatened to sue its producer, music mogul David Geffen. As the Supremes became more successful, Ballard became depressed and increasingly resentful of Ross's growing stardom, until she was eventually thrown out of the group in July 1967. However, that position was taken by the more ruthless Ross, who was also engaged in a relationship with Motown's boss, Berry Gordy. Pop music mythology holds that Ballard was the better singer, played the larger role in creating the Supremes, and should really have become their de facto leader. Deena Jones is the Ross figure and Effie is Ross's bandmate Florence Ballard.
The quarter-century lag in its transition from stage to screen is the result of the controversial nature of the Dreamgirls story: it is a thinly veiled recounting of the one of pop's more acrimonious stories: that of Diana Ross and the Supremes. In 1981, 25 years before it was a film, Dreamgirls was a multi-award-winning Broadway smash. She is left to struggle in poverty until she stages a solo comeback nearly a decade later. Effie becomes increasingly bitter playing second fiddle and is eventually thrown out of the band. Originally the lead singer of the group, Effie is replaced by her bandmate Deena Jones (played by Knowles) as Deena's good looks, svelte figure and smoother voice will give them the cross-over appeal the girls need to hit the big time. The film charts the story of a fictional 1960s girl group, the Dreams, and their rise from teenagers at Detroit talent shows to platinum-selling superstars.
In Dreamgirls, Hudson plays Effie White, a singer with a voice to match her ample ego. From the moment that I got the call telling me I got the part to the day that I walked on to the set with Beyoncé, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, up until this point, I could never have imagined how huge it would become. Today, dressed in deep jade and still sufficiently new to A-list showbiz to enjoy having a personal makeup artist and hairdresser, she clutches my leg, and says: "This is all beyond my wildest dreams. Hudson - a sweet-natured, mid-western, church-going girl who says, "Oh my goodness" instead of, "Oh my God" - doesn't seem to care very much about the fuss. Others note darkly that Hudson was put forward for awards as best supporting actress, as opposed to best actress, even though Dreamgirls is essentially her character's story. Some industry observers believe she has already been a victim of that power: there's been controversy over the fact Hudson's absence from the recent Vanity Fair magazine Dreamgirls cover, on which Beyoncé appeared centre stage. Perhaps she's playing the PR game perhaps she's wary of the enormous power Beyoncé wields in the entertainment industry.
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