Ease on Down the Road... a career dip

But Diana's success in film was to be short-lived.

In 1978, Motown Productions, the film/television, a division of Berry Gordy's Motown Records label, were planning to make a big-screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical 'The Wiz', a Motown version of 'The Wizard of Oz'.

Diana wanted to play Dorothy, but Berry insisted that she was too old at 33 years old. Diana then went around him and went to the head of Universal Pictures, convincing him to fund the project if she could star in it. Despite having an all-star cast made up of Diana, Michael Jackson and Richard Prior, it was a commercial and critical failure, with many complaining that the singer was "too old" for the part. Diana did not star on the big screen again and last appeared in made-for-TV movie 'Double Platinum' in 1999.