Ebony (May 2002)

You Can Have It All:

Vanessa Williams

Has An NBA Hunk Husband, A New Child And A New Lease On Life

By Lynn Norment

It´s 8.30 a.m., another beautiful California morning. Vanessa L. Williams is up and about her Marina Del Ray home, on the computer paying bills. Before she can get much done, her 2-year-old daughter, Sasha, is up and about. Williams prepared breakfast and makes a few telephone calls before dressing Sasha and leaving for the toddler´s gymnastics class in Venice Beach. On other days, it is swimming or music classes.

The attentive mother keeps an eye on the adorable, active child as she goes through the workout with instructions. After returning Sasha home, Vanessa heads off to a sound studio, where she completes a voiceover for an October episode of Disney´s The Proud Family animated television series.

She then breezes into a restaurant in Universal City to have lunch with a longtime acquaintance. Dressed in khaki pants, orange blouse, jean jacket and platform sandals, with a hat pulled over her sandy hair, she melds into the California ambience of the upscale restaurant. After lunch she heads to the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Throughout the day she checks in by the phone with her other three children, Melanie, 14, Jillian, 12, and Devin, 9, who are back home in Chappaqua, N.Y., while she wraps up her two-month stay in Los Angeles. She also checks in with their caregiver, the children´s father, entertainment manager Ramon Hervey, who also lives nearby and shares custody of the children; and her parents, who live a few miles away and spend a lot time with the grandchildren.

In family Christmas card photograph she, Sasha and Fox pose with (from left) Fox´s son Kyle, and her children, Jillian, Melanie and Devin.

On this particular day, Williams´ husband of two years, Los Angeles Lakers´ star Rick Fox, happens to be in New York for a game, so she talks to him several times throughout the day. She relaxes in her dressing room between phone calls, voice rehearsal, yoga classes, makeup sessions, and hair styling before the 8 p.m. curtain goes up for tonight´s performance of Into The Woods. And then, for three glorious hours, she sings, dances and acts her way through the very successful, very entertaining pre-Broadway run of the acclaimed Stephen Sondheim/James Laptine production.

At about 11.30 p.m., Williams arrives back home, peeks in on Sasha and winds down. If Fox were home, she would spend several hours with him before turning in. Before long, she´ll be up with Sasha again, starting a brand new day, another typical day in the life of this celebrity mom.

Vanessa Lynne Williams Fox is the epitome of a 2002 celebrity working mother who is doing it all, having it all, and enjoying every minute of it.

With husband, NBA star Rick Fox, she poses with toddler daughter Sasha. 

"There is no such thing as balance," says the multitalented entertainer when asked how she manages it all, how she balances her busy career with her even busier family life. "Sometimes when I´m not with all my kids, I feel I have to accept that my life will be unbalanced. There are only a few times a year that I get a chance to have everybody together, around the holidays and vacations, and those great times. Most of the time, I am juggling a career with being home with the kids. Fortunately, I have great kids who understand my life."

And a husband who understands as well. "I am fortunate that our [pre-Broadway run] is in L.A.," she says. "So I get a chance to actually live with my husband and pretend that we live together all the time."

Most times Williams is on the East Coast, her husband on the West. She spends most of her time at her restored, turn-of-the-century farmhouse in Westchester County, where her kids go to the same school she did as a child. Fox spends most of his time at their Los Angeles home, which is near the Lakers´ training facility and the airport.

"I have been out here for two and half months without having to get on a plane," Williams says as she eyes her baked brie with portabello mushrooms and roasted peppers. "There is an amount of stress that always came with our visits. It´s tough to have a marriage in which you are always anxious about and thinking, ´Okay, when are you going to leave? Let´s maximize every moment together.´ It´s been nice to just kind of chill, just live with each other and realize what I have been missing - even though he is on the road and he isn´t here the whole time either."

Before going to theater, Williams keeps an eye on 2-year old Sasha as she romps during gymnastics class.
 "She´s into everything and keeps everybody laughing because she is so animated and verbal," says Williams.
 "She is very advanced physically and mentally."

When asked what kind of guy her husband is, she uses the terms fun-loving, romantic and thoughtful to describe him. "He´s loyal, hardworking, fun-loving, supportive man who is secure with himself and very proud of his family," she says. She tells of how when she started rehearsals for Into The Woods, she casually mentioned that she needed to get some things to personalize her dressing room. The next day, Fox personally delivered a slipcover for the sofa, a huge, beautiful screen, candles, a rock garden, stereo, television, flowers, and more. "People were saying, ´Oh, my God, your dressing room is great,´" Vanessa says, smiling beautifully. "And I just said, ´My husband did it.´

"I didn´t have to ask him," she continues. "It´s just the little things that are very romantic and very thoughtful that make a difference. He is very romatic and thoughtful and caring. As a father he is enthusiastic; he just can´t wait to see his children. One of his happiest moments is when he finishes a game and we´re in the family room waiting for him. Even if they lose or if he had a bad game, his daughter is running to him calling ´Daddy! Daddy!´ It makes everything worthwhile."

Williams met Fox in August 1998 when, through acquaintances, he invited her to his birthday party while she was in L.A. for the premiere of her movie, Dance With Me. "I had never dated an athlete," seh confesses, "and I was just out of a relationship that was pretty painful, and the last thing I was looking for was to get involved in another relationship, especially with a high-profile, handsome athlete whom you would think all the girls are chasing."

After almost getting cold feet, she stopped by his party briefly, and he accepted her invitation to attend the premiere and party for her movie the next evening. "He sent me three dozen roses to thank me for inviting  him to be a part of my opening night," Williams says.

Soon after that, Fox tracked her down in New York after he finished filming a movie in Canada. Because the NBA was in a lockout, he decided to stay in New York, and Vanessa decided, finally, to accept his invitation to go out. "He was very much a gentleman, and not a hound," she says of their first close encounters. "I think everyone has a perception of professional athletes, especially single ones who are gorgeous; you assume that they have a whole lot of women always available to them or chasing them, and I didn´t want to be a part of any of that. So I wasn´t digging him at all. I didn´t want to be caught up in any of that, and I had never dated a high-profile athlete. I had just gone from a marriage of 10 years to being single."

Vanessa L. Williams  is thriving in entertainment and at home as wife and mother.

She and Fox went out a number of times, and then he took her to his hometown, Nassau, Bahamas. On another getaway, he took her to Jamaica. "We had a nice little dating period," she says. "Being whisked away for weekends on a Caribbean island - those are very romantic arrangements . . . that lend themselves to getting to know someone and falling in love."

As she picks her London broil salad and sips on mint tea, Vanessa ponders the question: When did you know he was the ONE?

"Do you ever know when the person is the one?" she finally says, her expressive blue eyes underscoring her point. "After being in a marriage, you certainly don´t want to fail again. I think I was willing to trust again in maybe six months into it. I think that what happened is that I fell in love, I surrendered easily and then pulled back. I said to myself, ´Okay, am I repeating the same pattern? Am I making another mistake?´ Your heart falls and your brain is saying, ´Wait a minute.´ You want to be brave and then there´s the fear of failing. So then you just have to convince yourself and ponder, how can I make it better, how can I make sure this is different? He´s a different person and it´s a different situation. I´m a different person."

She says Fox is "mature for his age" and made it known that he "wanted me" from the beginning. "He said that ´If I don´t marry you, I am not going to marry anybody else.´ That was very comforting," she says.

"I was more caught up in the age difference in the beginning because he is six years younger than I am," she reveals. "I got over that eventually. The age thing was a factor for me; it wasn´t for him . . . He´s very loyal. He´s very connected to his family and his tradition. And coming into a relationship with three kids, that is a lot for anyone. It was not only a new relationship, but I had kids."

She and Fox were married a little over a year after meeting. As pointed out in a New York Times "money" article, Williams and Fox prefer to keep their financial affairs apart. Williams acknowledges that their lawyers drew up a prenuptial agreement that says each partner is entitled to his or her own property in the event of a divorce.

During Into the Woods, Williams sings, acts and dances as she transforms from wicked witch into beautiful witch. 
Above, she is shown in a scene with Stephen DeRosa and Kerry O´Malley. 
"Into the Woods is a great showcase because I get a chance to be scary and funny and wicked and glamorous," she says.

Williams is now back on the East Coast, where she is scheduled to perform in Into the Woods on Broadway through November. After the NBA season ends in June, Fox will spend most of his time on the East Coast with the family. His 7-year-old son, Kyle, stays with them during the summer. "My three kids embraced and adopted him; it ws kind of an instant family," Williams says.

In December, Williams will perform in a short run of Carmen Jones at the Kennedy Center in D.C. It is a role she´s always wanted, and she looks forward to working again with director Debbie Allen. "I can´t wait to work with Debbie," Williams says. "She is phenomenal; she is one of my mentors . . . She just always did so many things; she is so creative, so much of a leader." Williams adds that she also greatly admires Lena Horne and Diahann Carroll, both multitalented show business veterans who crossed boundaries throughout their careers.

In 1999, Vanessa Williams and NBA hunk Rick Fox tied the knot during a ceremony in New York City.
 "He is very romatic and thoughtful and caring," Williams says of Fox.

A versatile entertainer, Williams is also considering another Broadway production. "The thing about Broadway is that I get to sing and dance and act and completely express myself, and do it on a nightly basis and make it different each night," she says. "When I go to work, I´m doing something that I love."

Williams is also working with Tonya Lewis Lee (wife of filmmaker Spike Lee) to develop a role in a comedy that Lewis Lee is producing. ("She is a great, smart person," Williams says.) In addition, she is reviewing other scripts and considering doing a television show, something she never seriously pondered before because of the time required on the West Coast.

She´s also returning to the recording studio. With ethereal vocals, she delivered four hit pop-R&B-jazz CDs for Mercury Records, but the company dissolved in the merger/acquisition/shut-down frenzy that swept through the industry in the mid-to-late ´90s. Williams ended up at Def Jam Records, and though she says she enjoys a number of Def Jam artists, it was not a good fit for her. And she is not put off by the skimpily-clad young female artists who are dominating the record charts these days. "Record companies know that it is a youth market that makes money," she says, "but they also have to be aware that adults like to listen to music too, and there has to be something for that market."

When she was in her 20s, Williams says she felt she was always "waiting for something," hoping that one day she would prove taht she could do this or that. "Now, in my 30s, I can make things happen and not have to depend on other people," she says. "There is much more power and it is much more gratifying, and you know so much more."

Including how to be a good mother. "I´ve heard comments about how I can be so calm as a mother, and then they say, ´Your kids are really calm and polite.´ It´s the tone you set," Williams emphasizes. "I don´t scream at them. I don´t hit them. I reason with them. I give them boundaries and limits, and they know there are consequences for their actions. That is what makes tehm the kids that they are. Don´t humiliate them. Make them feel like individuals, but also that there is certainly a line that you don´t cross. And you have to respect me as a mother, and respect your parents and your elders. They learn by example."

She adds that on occasion, her kids also "see that wicked witch voice come out," referring to her role in Into the Woods. She tells how Melanie, a cheerleader at her school, recently came home from a game an hour and half after her curfew. "Instead of screaming and belitting her, when she came in, she just looked at me, and I said, ´You know this will never happen again.´ And she understood. She knows that if it ever happens again, her priviledges will be taken away and she wouldn´t be able to be a cheerleader. Which is even more embarrassing."

For role models, Williams looks to her own parents. Her mother, Helen Williams, is a retired music teacher who stays busy these days with her grandkids and community activities. Her father, Milton Williams, continues to teach music at the local school and give private lessons. But not on Tuesdays. That evening is reserved for Melanie, Jillian and Devin to come for dinner and music lessons. Soon Sasha will start lessons as well.

Vanessa says the one lesson in particular she learned from her parents and hopes to impact to her kids is, "You are going to have to be better than everybody else just to be considered equal." She wants her children to be aware that because they are in an integrated school and enviroment, others are watching them, that they are the ones who will be identified if they mischievous. "If a whole bunch of kids are smoking pot behind school, they are going to remember the Black ones," she tells them.

She also wants her kids to "feel comfortable in their own skin, to feel proud of their heritage, who they are and where they come from. And that they are not afraid to follow what is inside their hearts . . . I hope they have the courage to go for whatever is that they want."

If one of her children decides to pursue a career in show business, Williams says she would support and encourage them "if they were talented . . . and after they got their college degree."

Though her life is full and fulfilling, Williams says she may have another baby. She has always wanted a big family. And from all appearances, the slender beauty is in great shape. With regular workouts on her treadmill, yoga sessions and eating nutritiously, she´s back to size 4-6, about the same size she was when she was crowned Miss America.

"We may go one more time for another child. Maybe," she says, her eyes twinkling. "Rick wants one more. I think we are able to go one more time, because I´m blessed to be able to have kids at my age whereas my friends are struggling . . . That will be six total."

Seems that Vanessa Williams can say the same about motherhood taht she says about Broadway: "I really feel it is what I do best."