THE FUSE

The year was 1981. Diana Ross sat across a negotiating table from executives at RCA Records and signed a seven-year contract worth $20 million, the largest recording deal in the history of the music industry at that moment. She had just walked away from Motown after two decades, collected a $250,000 severance from Berry Gordy and decided, at 37, that the next chapter of her career would be written entirely on her own terms. Her first RCA album, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," sold over a million copies. The gamble worked. It almost always did with Diana Ross.