Melba's first professional stage role was in Hair; from 1968 to 1970 she rose up through the chorus to win the female lead. "I have no hard-luck stories," she says, in her clear, nearly accentless voice. "From Hair, I went right into Purlie." That was the role that earned her the 1970 Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress and the New York Drama Critics' and Drama Desk Awards.
Melba was born 32 years ago on West 108th Street. Both her parents were entertainers, and Melba began singing at the age of 4. At college she majored in music, and upon graduation, taking the advice of her parents to "get some security," she taught school for a year. But soon a burning desire to get into show business took hold of her, and she quit teaching. "Ever since that day," she recalls, "even before I got my first singing job, the whole world looked better to me."
It was while working as a studio singer that she was given an audition for Hair, and since then her story has been a virtually unbroken success. Melba has starred in numerous television shows, including her own summer series for CBS and an ABC special on the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Better known for her singing than her acting, Melba has recorded nine albums and has received a Grammy nomination. Her most remarkable vocal feat, however, was probably her one-woman concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in December 1976, which won her rave notices from every music critic in town. In the concert, she performed everything from ballads to rock to opera.
"Singing opera actually rests my voice," says Melba. "It's like doing vocal exercises." Equally at home in a nightclub or a concert hall, she has demonstrated her four-octave range with many of America's leading orchestras.
Her new album, released late in September by Epic Records and titled simply Melba Moore, contains both disco songs and straight ballads. One of the cuts, "You Stepped Into My Life," is out as a single. Another cut is "The Greatest," from a film about Muhammad Ali. "No, I didn't sing it in the movie, but I am an Ali fan. I'm a fight fan. I turn on the cable and watch everyone — flyweights, everybody. People I've never hard of."
Her new movie, Purlie, in which Melba will recreate her Broadway smash success, is scheduled to begin filming this November in the countryside of Georgia. Melba plays the orphan Lutibelle Gussiemae Jenkins. After the movie, she will devote most of her time to a new musical, Harlem Renaissance, which is planned to reach Broadway next spring.
The day after she quit Timbuktu, Melba headed for Acapulco to be one of the judges in the Miss Universe Pageant. "They said there were going to be 600 million people watching, so I made sure my nose was powdered. … They worked us from sunup to sunup, but I did manage to get a little suntan," she says teasingly, showing me a patch of light brown skin directly under her top shirt button.
Married for the past five years to restaurateur Charles Huggins, Melba is overjoyed to have a child at last — "we have been waiting for her" — and spends as much time as she can with her daughter. A Westsider off and on for most of her life, Melba is fond of shopping at Vim and Vigor Health Foods (57th Street near the Carnegie Recital Hall), then going next door to the Merit Farm Store, where she buys her favorite junk food.
Of all her accomplishments in the last 10 years, Melba is perhaps proudest of her involvement with an international television series for children, Big Blue Marble, which is currently being shown in 78 countries.
"I'm very much into international things," says Melba, "I have appeared in some of the segments, but basically my role is to let people know about it. … In some way, we hope that the program can help promote peace and understanding to these children — while they're still at a vulnerable age."