The singer’s family has asked the court to approve a legal arrangement
that would govern her medical decisions and finances after relatives
objected to the previous care by a longtime friend.
A
judge in Los Angeles is set to consider on Tuesday whether to establish
a conservatorship for an 83-year-old former member of the Supremes, whose family has argued that her physical and mental frailties have made her vulnerable to undue influence for years.
The
singer, Cindy Birdsong, spent nearly a decade with the group after
replacing one of its original members, Florence Ballard, in 1967,
performing hits such as “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “I Hear a
Symphony” as one-third of Motown’s marquee act.
But
after Birdsong left the Supremes in 1976, her finances fell apart — a
situation she later attributed to a “bad closing deal” with Motown
Records — and later on, several strokes left her unable to care for
herself or manage her affairs, her family has said.
Birdsong’s
siblings have asked that the singer’s brother, Ronald Birdsong, serve
as co-conservator alongside an entertainment business manager, Brad
Herman. It was Herman, called in by a friend of Birdsong’s, who
spearheaded the singer’s removal two years ago from an apartment where
she lived with a longtime friend.
The family has said the friend, Rochelle
Lander, isolated them from Birdsong and withheld information about her
ailing health. They have argued that a conservatorship is needed to
ensure that her care and finances are being properly managed. Birdsong,
who is not known to have retained significant music royalty rights, is
currently in a California nursing facility where she is on a feeding
tube, according to court papers.
“Since
I live outside of California, and since my sister has been unable to
tend to her affairs herself,” Ronald Birdsong said in the
conservatorship application, “I depend on Mr. Herman to keep me updated
on Cindy’s well-being as well as helping to keep all of her affairs in
order.”
Last month, the judge assigned to the
case, Lee R. Bogdanoff, referred it to the Office of the Public
Guardian, indicating that he will consider whether a third-party
conservator should step in to manage Birdsong’s affairs. His rationale
for the decision was not made public, but he based it on the findings of
a confidential report by a court investigator.
Herman
and Terri Birdsong, a sister of Cindy Birdsong’s, said they were
working with a newly hired lawyer to fill in some of the information
that was lacking in their initial conservatorship application, and that
they expected the singer’s court-appointed lawyer to ask for a delay in
the case while they did so.
The court-appointed lawyer, John Alan Cohan, did not respond to requests for comment.
It
is unclear whether Lander, a former performer with whom Cindy Birdsong
started a Christian ministry, is planning to challenge the family’s bid
for a conservatorship. She has defended her care of the singer in the
past, saying that she had been steadfastly dedicated to helping her over
many years, and she has displayed a power of attorney that she said
Birdsong signed more than a decade ago.
The tensions
between Birdsong’s siblings and Lander mounted a few years ago, during a
visit to the singer’s Los Angeles apartment, where the family said it
was stunned by how her condition had deteriorated, according to
interviews with her three living siblings and a sister-in-law. The
family ultimately reached out to the police, who enforced Birdsong’s
removal from the apartment in 2021.
In a video taken by Herman that night, Lander argued against the removal, citing her power of attorney papers.
“She
needs to have due process before you come in forcefully and think
you’re going to take over her life,” Lander said in the video, as
several police officers stood in the hallway of the apartment building.
Lander has not agreed to an interview and did not respond to requests for comment about the court proceedings.
Herman,
who holds a power of attorney signed by the three siblings and
sister-in-law, said the family wants the legal proceeding to help
clarify how the singer’s money has been managed in recent years.
“From
the time I became power of attorney, I’ve been trying to get documents
that tell me what rights, what royalties, what residuals are coming to
Cindy,” Herman said in a recent interview. “Whatever monies have come
in, where did they go?”
Though it was
well known that Birdsong had stopped performing and largely slipped from
public view, the extent of her deterioration prompted an outpouring of
concern several weeks ago, around when the family filed its
conservatorship application.
“Prayers for a lady who has meant so much to my life,” one fan wrote on a Facebook page dedicated to Birdsong.
Some
friends and associates of Birdsong, like Jim Saphin, who befriended the
singer in the ’60s and ran a British fan club for Diana Ross and the
Supremes, said they had been dismayed to hear of the singer’s condition.
Steve
Weaver, a record producer who lives in England and has worked with
former Supremes, said he had spoken with close friends of Birdsong’s who
had visited her in recent weeks and reported that she had not been able
to speak.
“But playing Supremes records really boosts her up,” Weaver said he had been told.
Charlo
Crossley-Fortier, a singer and actress who became friends with Birdsong
after meeting her at church, and John Whyman, a friend since the ’70s
who at one point invited the singer to live with him amid financial
struggles, said they had become concerned over the years that Lander had
been isolating Birdsong from other friends and family and had actively
resisted her pursuit of any role in pop music.
Weaver
recalled that about a decade ago, he was set to record a track with
Birdsong when Lander intervened and declared that Birdsong was “not
recording any secular music now.” Birdsong, who often recalled how
Christianity had lifted her out of serious depression after leaving the
Supremes, once said in a television interview with “The 700 Club” that she didn’t “have a desire to sing rock ’n’ roll anymore,” preferring to sing religious music instead.
Though
Birdsong’s life took a sharp turn after leaving the Supremes,
Crossley-Fortier said, “Cindy will forever be part of music history.”
Full Article & Source:Judge Weighs Conservatorship for the Former Supreme Cindy Birdsong
See Also:The Family of a Former Supreme Battles for Control of Her Life
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