What Happened? Stephanie Mills

 Stephanie Mills

Stephanie Mills began her career appearing in her first play at the age of nine. Two years later, Mills won Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater a record six times. The victory led to her being cast in her first Broadway role, the orphaned child of a runaway slave in the musical Maggie Flynn.

In 1973, Mills' musical recording career was launched when she was signed to Paramount records by Michael Barbiero, and her first single "I Knew It Was Love" was released. She was later signed to Motown. Her first two albums there failed to generate a buzz as the label could not find Mills' sound and she left the label in 1976.

Mills' career took a rise when she portrayed Dorothy in The Wiz, where she began dating Michael Jackson. Filled with a more urban style of music and scenery, The Wiz made Mills a star particularly because of her stellar performance of the song "Home." ‎"Mills was the teen-age star of the Broadway stage production of The Wiz. When she sang "Home", the musical's answer to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", her theatrical delivery thrilled audiences and marked her as a talent to watch. One of her most appreciative fans was Michael. By his own count he saw The Wiz eight times, in part because of the up-coming film version but also because he and Stephanie had become friends.

She was romantically involved with Michael Jackson for a short period of time while she was doing The Wiz.  Stephanie claimed that she wanted to marry Michael Jackson, but he was focused on his career.

Mills was passed over in casting for the film version of The Wiz. Motown’s Berry Gordy, the executive producer of the movie, decided in favor of her childhood idol Diana Ross, but the snub might actually have worked to her advantage—the movie was widely panned, and Mills herself, according to Sepia, felt that it “could have been the first black classic, and it just wasn’t that.” Meanwhile, Mills’s recording career was taking off. In 1976 she released the album For the First Time on the Motown label; it was produced and composed by the legendary pop songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

Musical success was elusive until 1979, when signed under the 20th Century Fox Records record label, Mills found her breakthrough in disco music, recording songs such as "Put Your Body In It," "You Can Get Over," and "What Cha' Gonna Do With My Lovin'." The resulting album, What Cha' Gonna Do with My Lovin', was Mills' first gold record.

Stephanie Mills had been married in the 1970s for a brief period, to Jeffrey Daniel from the soul group Shalamar. When Mills married Daniel, it's rumored that a friend of Mills, allegedly tried to block the limo from leaving the church after the wedding. Mills once stated in an interview that Daniel’s friends were very unfriendly towards her and reports of domestic violence surfaced shortly after the marriage. Allegedly, singer Jody Watley wasn’t happy about the marriage either, because she had been linked to Daniel prior to the marriage. Daniel gave Stephanie's family the address to the wrong church because he knew they would object to her marrying him, to Mills' parents he was not on her level and personally believe he was just after her fame and money. In the mid 1980s to Dino Memingerbut that both marriages had ended in less than two years. "I also wanted to know why my relationships never made it to two years. I knew it was me," says Mills. "You can't blame it on another person. That's where a lot of women go wrong... carrying over from a bad relationship to a new relationship."

She quickly followed the success with 1980's Sweet Sensation, which featured Mills' biggest hit to date, the Reggie Lucas-produced "Never Knew Love Like This Before". The single became a #12 R&B and #6 Pop hit in 1980, as well as reaching #4 in the UK Singles Chart. 1981's Stephanie featured a top hit for her and Teddy Pendergrass entitled "Two Hearts," while her 1983 album, Merciless, featured her hit cover of Prince's "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?", as well as the #3 dance chart hit "Pilot Error", which was her first dance hit in the U.S. In 1984, Mills had her third UK hit with "The Medicine Song" (#29), which also reached #1 on the U.S. dance chart.

After a reprise of her Wiz role in 1984, Mills signed with the MCA label in 1985 and released the album Stephanie Mills. That album marked the beginning of a career resurgence for Mills; its R&B number one single “I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love,”

Success for Mills had peaked until 1985, when her version of the Angela Winbush-penned "I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love," hit #1 on the R&B singles chart. Mills truly returned, however, with her next release, If I Were Your Woman in 1987 under MCA Records, which she was now signed. The hits from the album include the title track, originally a hit for Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1971; a three-week #1 R&B hit, "I Feel Good All Over" (a song her label mate Patti LaBelle did not wish to cover); and "You're Puttin' a Rush on Me," to name a few of the songs released. The album reached platinum status. That same year, she appeared in the NBC TV special, Motown: Merry Christmas along with other musical artists and actors, performing the song, "Christmas Everyday", which was written by actor/comedian Redd Foxx.

Mills' success continued with 1989's Home album. The hits from that album include "The Comfort of a Man," the title track, a cover of her old standard from The Wiz and another song penned by Winbush titled "Something in the Way You Make Me Feel." It became another platinum record for Mills.

Mills seemed to be flying high. But all was not well on the personal front. Discouraged by the failure of her two marriages, Mills also found that her business managers had played foul. “Millions have been taken from me,” she told Ebony in 1992. Mills filed suit against her financial manager, John Davimos, and was quoted in Jet as saying that “when you find that those you trust prove themselves untrustworthy, it is necessary to take the appropriate action so that the same thing doesn’t happen to other entertainers.” The low point came when Mills’s family was threatened with eviction from their Mount Vernon estate, but a loan from New York’s non-profit Housing Assistance Corporation averted that crisis.

Mills would record one more album (1992's Something Real) and a Christmas album before being released from her contract with MCA in 1992. Mills released a live gospel recording in 1995 on GospoCentric Records entitled Personal Inspirations. The set was produced by Donald Lawrence and featured a spiritualized retooling of her hit "I Have Learned To Respect The Power Of Love." Thereafter, Stephanie took a break from recording to care for her son.

Mills put things back together with the help of the philosophy of motivational guru Marianne Williamson. She married North Carolina radio programmer Michael Saunders in 1992 (with Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nations of Islam performing the ceremony), and, as she was quoted as saying in Jet, “I deliberately took myself out of the show-biz grind.… I live a normal life and only occasionally take work that comes my way.”

Mills returned to musical theater in 1997, playing the lead in a major production of Stephen Schwartz's Children of Eden in New Jersey, which Schwartz has called "the definitive production" of the show. Mills was heavily featured in the soundtrack CD that resulted from this production.

In an interview with Soul Music in 2002, Mills said that she had a son, Farad. Mills would not comment on the identity of Farad’s father, other than to say that she is not married, and that her ex-husband Michael Saunders is not Farad's father. Mills added that giving birth “was the best thing I’ve ever done. It was amazingly wonderful and I wish I had started earlier. I might have had two or three before but I had some problems before in being able to have children. But things work out when they’re supposed to... now I’m a single working parent and loving it!"

Mills made an appearance in the 2007 gospel TV series Sunday’s Best and was recently featured in a live interview on The Yolanda Adams Morning Show, where she mentioned that she now has her own record label (JM Records).

In an interview with Windy City Times in 2010, Mills said that she presently makes her home in Charlotte, North Carolina and that her son, Farad has Down's Syndrome.