How close is the real story of the Supremes to the Dreamgirls?

Question

We just saw Dreamgirls and I know it's supposed to be based on the Supremes but how close and who actually wrote the story and when did it originally open on broadway and who played the parts?

Answer 1

Pretty close.

You can Wikipedia or Google the Supremes all you want, but no website in the world will give you the full story. People said it is loosely based to avoid being held liable (lawsuits are not nice).

Supremes: Grew up in projects of Detroit as friends. Check one.

Supremes: Florence Ballard (Effie White in the movie musical) originated the group and was the lead singer. Check two

Supremes: For those of us who were fortunate to have some music education in school, if you listen closely to the early recordings of the Supremes, it was Florence Ballard, followed by Mary Wells (Lorrell in the movie musical), THEN Diana Ross (Deena in the movie musical) who had the singing chops. Check three.

Florence Ballard is replaced by Cyndi Brydsong. Check four.

The Supremes change their name to Diana Ross and the Supremes as Ross emerges as the lead singer. Check five.

In the original musical, Effie White was supposed to die after being kicked out, just like Florence Ballard, but the musical was reworked to give everyone a happy ending.

In the movie adaptation (SPOILER HERE), you find out that Effie has a child with Curtis. Truth be told, Diana Ross and Berry Gordy (whom Curtis is loosely based) had an illegitimate child (Rhonda Ross Kendrick) together that they tried to keep hidden from the public, but since she looked just like THE BOTH OF THEM, THE ATTEMPT WAS FUTILE.

To answer your other question, Michael Bennett was the impresario behind the original musical. I do not know about the male leads, but Sheryl Lee Ralph played Deena, Loretta Devine was Lorell, and I do not know who played Effie before Jennifer Holliday, but there you go.

Answer 2

The screenplay is more close than the Broadway play. Dreamgirls is based on the life and careers of the Supremes. As a matter of fact one of the Supremes Florence Ballard was kicked out of the group and replaced. A special was featured on her 7 years or so back and she was living in poverty and on welfare. So it is related. And Dina whose character was based on Diana Ross out shined and made all the money. Her career continued and she did movies as well. From what the media says Ross is denying any connection to their lives, but if you read about each of the four Supremes you can see the similarities. To discredit a little to screenplays and musicals, unless they were there, it is not actual accounts. There are so many sides to a story.

Answer 3

The Real Dreamgirls

Answer 4

the elementary plot of Dreamgirls is derived from the historic previous of The Supremes, a woman-team from Detroit, Michigan, which grow to be Motown's maximum efficient team act in the course of the Nineteen Sixties. Effie White is a doppelgänger for Florence Ballard, unique lead singer of the Supremes; the nature's vocal stylings and personality are depending upon Aretha Franklin and Etta James. Diana Ross, who grew to grow to be the critical concentration of the Supremes and later left the gang to pursue a solo occupation and a short undertaking into videos, is right here adapted into the nature of Deena Jones. Supremes member Mary Wilson is represented by using Lorrell Robinson. Curtis Taylor, Jr., represents Berry Gordy, Jr., the founding father of Motown, who pushed the Supremes in route of father fulfillment and grew to grow to be romantically in contact with Ross. James "Thunder" Early is depicted as a representative of soul singers jointly with James Brown, Little Richard, Marvin Gaye, and Jackie Wilson. C. C. White is a collective representative for The Supremes' songwriters, who blanketed the Holland-Dozier-Holland team and Smokey Robinson. Michelle Morris is representative of Cindy Birdsong, Florence Ballard's alternative in the Supremes, which grow to be renamed "Diana Ross & the Supremes" on the time of that line-up replace. Dreamgirls is maximum distinct from The Supremes' tale in its 2d act, which finally ends up with Effie searching fulfillment as a solo performer. In authentic existence, Florence Ballard's solo occupation grow to be unsuccessful and the singer sank into poverty, melancholy, and alcoholism, death of cardiac arrest on the age of thirty-2 in 1976, only after her occupation were revived. The play also shows idea from the 1976 characteristic movie Sparkle, which itself grow to be stimulated by using The Supremes' tale. Michael Bennett, Henry Krieger, Tom Eyen, and the Dreamgirls manufacturers denied and downplayed the connections between the musical's plot and the Supremes' existence memories, hoping to stay away from criminal subject matters from Motown archives and Diana Ross. Mary Wilson loved Dreamgirls, or maybe named her first autobiography, Dreamgirl: My existence as a ideally suited, after it. Diana Ross, notwithstanding, grow to be reportedly angered by using the musical, and expressed her dislike of it in the media. notwithstanding the Deena personality mirrors Diana Ross, Sheryl Lee Ralph stands to the actual incontrovertible truth that she grow to be no longer attempting to mimic Ross, yet portrayed Deena in an same yet different style.

Answer 5

I WOULD SAY LOOSLY. ALL TRUE STORY ARE BASICALLY JUST BASED ON THE STORY LINE. I HEARD THAT DREAM GIRLS IS BASED ON MORE THAN THE SUPREMES.

Answer 6

It came out of Hollyweird. That should tell you something.

Answer 7

dont know havent watched the movie!

Answer 8

very close