Grammy-winning artist Dionne Warwick made an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Jan. 20, and she told the talk show host about performing in the 1960s.
The “I Say a Little Prayer” singer recalled a performance in 1963 at the Paris Olympia Hall in Paris, France, to perform songs from her new album, “This Empty Place.”
A music label in France had released the record after replacing Warwick with a white woman on the cover, and the audience thought Dionne Warwick was white until she stepped on the stage. She described the moment to Colbert after the talk show asked what the reaction was.
“Oh, quite amazing,” she laughed. “I walked out on stage at the Olympia theatre, and of course, they were accustomed to seeing this,” she said as she pointed to the album cover. “There was a collective gasp. I said, ‘Yeah, I ain’t no white woman; I’m Black,'” Warwick recalled.
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The singer also told Stephen Colbert how she met Sidney Poitier after stalking him for his autograph. The two would continue to know each other until his death on Jan. 6 at the age of 94.
“My mouth didn’t work. It just didn’t,” she said. “Finally, I said, ‘Can I have your autograph?’ And from that day till the last time I saw him, which was a year or so ago, he did not greet me as, ‘Hi, Dionne.’ It was, ‘Hello, little girl; you want my autograph?’ ”
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She also tweeted the story just after Poitier’s passing.
“He once caught me following him,” she wrote. “He said ‘little girl what do you want’ I muttered ‘can I have your autograph.’ From that day he always called me little girl and asked if I wanted his autograph. It was something we laughed about. He was my hero & great friend. May he RIP.”
https://twitter.com/dionnewarwick/status/1479493520683458563?s=20
Warwick also told Colbert about the advice she received from Nina Simone in the video below. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs on CBS weeknights at 11:35 p.m. EST.
