Florence Ballard her suit. Angered, Gordy ordered her to return to Detroit, and Birdsong officially replaced her, abruptly ending her tenure with the Supremes. It had been decided as early as May that Birdsong would be Ballard's official replacement once Birdsong's contract with the Bluebelles was bought out. In August 1967, the "Detroit Free Press" reported that Ballard had taken a temporary leave of absence from the group due to "exhaustion". Ballard eventually married her boyfriend, Thomas Chapman, on February 29, 1968. A week earlier, on February 22, Ballard and Motown negotiated to have Ballard released from the label. Her attorney in
Florence A. Davis Florence A. Davis Florence Davis is the President and a member of the Board of Directors of the Starr Foundation. She has served since March 1999. Davis graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College and then the New York University School of Law where she was a Root-Tilden Scholar. She joined Sullivan & Cromwell in 1979. In 1986, she began working for Morgan Stanley rising to Director of Worldwide Regulatory Affairs. In 1995, she became Vice President and General Counsel at American International Group (AIG). In 1992, she was named to the 40 under 40 list by "Crain’s New York