Florence Glenda Chapman (née Ballard; June 30, 1943 – February 22, 1976) was an American singer and a founding member of the Motown vocal female group the Supremes.

[5][6][7][8] Her siblings were Bertie, Cornell, Jesse, Jr., Gilbert, Geraldine, Barbara, Maxine, Billy, Calvin, Pat, Linda, and Roy.

[16] Named "Blondie" and "Flo" by family and friends, Ballard attended Northeastern High School and was coached vocally by Abraham Silver.

Ballard met future singing partner Mary Wilson during a middle-school talent show and they became friends while attending Northeastern High.

From an early age, Ballard aspired to be a singer and agreed to audition for a spot in the sister group and local Detroit attraction, the Primes, who were managed by Milton Jenkins.

[21] In 1960, Ballard was allegedly raped at knifepoint by local high-school basketball player Reggie Harding after leaving a sock hop at Detroit's Graystone Ballroom (she had arrived with her brother, but they lost track of each other).

Wilson believes that the incident heavily contributed to the self-destructive aspects of Ballard's adult personality, like cynicism, pessimism, and fear and distrust of others,[23] but the rape was never mentioned again.

Diana Ross worried they would be mistaken for a male vocal group, but Gordy agreed to sign them under that name on January 15, 1961.

[29] The group struggled in their early years with the label,[30] releasing eight singles that failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100, giving them the nickname "no-hit Supremes".

In the early spring of 1962 while the Marvelettes were on tour, Ballard briefly replaced its group member Wanda Young while she was on maternity leave.

Before the release of their 1962 debut album, Meet the Supremes, Barbara Martin, who had replaced Betty McGlown a year before they signed to Motown, left the group and it became a trio.

After the hit success of 1963's "When the Love Light Starts Shining Through His Eyes", Diana Ross became the group's lead singer.

Ballard sang lead on several songs on Supremes's albums, including a cover of Sam Cooke's "(Ain't That) Good News".

[34] Struggling to cope with the label's demands and her own depression, Ballard turned to alcohol for comfort, leading to arguments with Ross and Wilson.

In June, Gordy changed the group's name to "Diana Ross and The Supremes", which was how they were billed on the marquee of Las Vegas' Flamingo Hotel.

In 1968, Florence Ballard put her unique spin on the hit "Walk on By", originally sung by Dionne Warwick and crafted by the iconic duo Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

In 1974, Mary Wilson invited Ballard to join the Supremes (with their current lineup of Cindy Birdsong and Scherrie Payne) onstage at Magic Mountain.

Ballard performed as part of the Joan Little Defense League and was backed by female rock group the Deadly Nightshade.

In his short story "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band", Stephen King, through the late disc jockey Alan Freed, includes Ballard as one of the deceased artists who performs in a town called "Rock and Roll Heaven".

Dreamgirls, a 1981 Broadway musical, chronicles a fictional group called "The Dreams", and a number of plot components parallel events in the Supremes' career.

[43] The music video for the Diana Ross song "Missing You" pays tribute to Marvin Gaye, Ballard, and Paul Williams, all former Motown artists who had died.

In 1988, Ballard was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Supremes alongside Diana Ross and Mary Wilson.

[45] Ballard began dating Thomas Chapman, a Motown Records chauffeur, in 1967; they married in a private celebration in Hawaii on February 29, 1968, and had three daughters: twins Michelle Denise and Nicole Reneé (b.