'My first love': celebrities recall the first time they were hit by Cupid's arrow

Ebony, Feb, 1989 by Laura B. Randolph

IN life there are many passions, but only one first love.

Whether we were seven or 17, for most of us, the memory of the first time we fell in love remains ineradicable. Little wonder. When we fall in love for the first time, it is a time of such complete transport that somehow, long after we have become sophisticated people who know the perils of romantic entanglement, the memory lingers like psychic ambrosia: their cool skin, their voice, their smile, their eyes. just thinking about it is enough to make our blood as oxygenated as champagne, our heart as sweet and light as cotton candy.

First love. There is no memory quite as sweet. After all, it is to our first love that we are forever indebted for life's sweetest lessons: how to kiss, not smack or peck, but touch gentle, inquisitive lips. From our first love we learn how to hold a hand, to touch a soul, to read emotion in a look or a glance. And it is in these lessons we find the essence of first love's lasting value: it makes the fantasy of romantic love just as real, just as pertinent, just as heartwarming, in maturity as it was in youth.

First love. Nothing else quite equals it. On the following pages, the beautiful, the famous and the polished reveal, with insight and candor, their first love. LATOYA JACKSON, Recording Artist "I was very young and had never really dated before. Diana Ross used to let her brother, Chico, come to stay at our house for the summer. The summer of my 15th birthday, my brothers were out on tour so Chico and I hung out a lot together. We would go swimming at two in the morning, play pool together for hours and talk all the time. I remember whenever we were together, Chico would constantly stare at me. To me, it was a brother/sister relationship until summer's end and Chico's last day at the house. Diana sent a limo for him, and on his way home he had the driver stop at a pay phone on the side of the road. When I heard his voice he sounded so serious. He said: LaToya, I have something very important to ask you. Will you go with me?'l couldn't believe what he was saying and told him so because he was like another brother to me. After much conversation, he convinced me to say yes. Chico was my first boyfriend and the first guy I ever kissed. To this day whenever Diana sees me she says, LaToya, I wish things could have worked out for you and Chico. You're exactly the kind of girl he BLAIR UNDERWOOD Co-star, L.A. Law

I was 19 years old and it was the classic case of love at first sight. I was at an Amway dinner banquet my parents were hosting and she was sitting at a table across the room. There were at least 600 people there but when our eyes met across the room I told my brother Frank, 'This woman is fine and I think she's looking at me too' Frank told me I was dreaming, that she was looking at him. But I knew better. I found out she was the sister of a very good friend of mine. I had her sister introduce us, and from the moment we met we hung out together most of the night. It was the night before Halloween and we walked around the hotel all night-we just couldn't say goodnight. It felt so right. At the end of the night she asked me, So what's on your mind?'That really blew me away because that's usually my question. I just came out and told her. I said 'I want you to be my lady.

It lasted three years. She would come and visit me at school in Pittsburgh [Carnegie-Mellon University]. When I moved to New York to start my acting career I had a total of $200 in my pocket and we would dream about the future together. I would always tell her, i want to go to Hollywood and have my own series.' She was so supportive. In fact, there were plenty of nights when I didn't even have the 90 cents to buy a token to ride the D train from her house in the Bronx to my place in Brooklyn. She would just laugh and give it to me. if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have made it through as I did. Every Thursday I would pick her up and she would cook dinner and we would watch Cosby together. I would always say 'Some day I'm going to make it and when I do I'm going to be able to do special things for you.' She was my first and only love and even though we're not together romantically today, she is still my best friend." OLIVIA BROWN, Co-star of Miami Vice "My first love was Richard Pryor. I was absolutely crazy about him. I used to listen to his albums for hours and hours at a time. A woman who worked for my father was dating him, so I sneaked his phone number from her book. On my 16th birthday my father let me spend the weekend in Los Angeles with a girlfriend, and do you know how I spent it? We checked into a hotel and called Richard every hour on the hour. When he answered, I could never get up the nerve to actually say anything. When I turned 21, 1 moved to LA to live and it was right before I got the part in 48 Hours. When I found out Richard was playing at the Comedy Store, I got a job as a cocktail waitress there just so I could meet him. The night we were finally introduced, it was like I was 16 all over again. I couldn't talk-all I could do was stare. I always told my father I was going to marry Richard and we would laugh together for the rest of our lives." MARIO VAN PEEBLES, Star of the TV show Sonny Spoon "Her name was Maria and I was 15 years old. My sister introduced us. The feeling I had when I met her-if it wasn't love at first sight it was certainly deep like - is something that hasn't happened to me in a very long time. On our first date we went to Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. I didn't know what to say to her and she didn't know what to say to me, so there was a lot of awkward silence. Eventually we both got over it, and throughout the relationship I don't think that we ever argued. It lasted two and a half very beautiful years." RANDALL ROBINSON, Executive Director, TransAfrica "My first love was for an older woman. It was the summer of 1953; I was 12 and she was 16. My mother coerced my 16-year-old sister into allowing me to tag along with her to a party. Charitably, one of my sister's friends agreed to dance with me. The song was Red Sails in the Sunset. I will never forget it. Within 30 seconds I was in love, and the object of my initial romantic affection never had a clue." HOLLY ROBINSON, Co-star Of 21 jump Street "The first time I fell in love was with my brother's best friend. I followed him everywhere; I thought he was the living end. But he was three years older (a big difference at the time) and I was always 'the kid sister."' SIEDAH GARRETT, Recording Artist & Co-composer of Man In The Mirror "I wore sandals to my sixth-grade class one day and a boy named Bruce told me I had cute toes. That was it! I fell head over heels for the guy for at least two months. His sister became one of my best friends, although she could never understand why I liked her brother. Sisters are usually like that; girls swoon over their brothers and they just think,'What could anybody see in him?"' HAL WILLIAMS, Co-Star, 227 "I met her when I was three years old. We grew up in the same neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, and her mother knew my mother. When we got older, we would always try and pretend we couldn't stand each other, which at that age, of course, is a sure sip you are actually crazy about each other. One day I was walking through an alley with a group of guys, and we were taunting the girls. She picked up a rock and threw it at me as hard as she could. She was a good shot too. After that incident, we had our first date. One day after we'd all gone skating, we agreed to meet at the neighborhood hamburger joint. That was our first official date, and we were still teenagers when we married." PHYLUS HYMAN, Singer/Recording Artist I met my first love at a scrimmage football game in Pittsburgh, my home town. A bunch of folk were out in the park playing football. it was chilly that day and I was sitting in the car to stay warm. As I watched them play, one of the guys walked directly in front of the car and I was immediately attracted to him. I was quite taken. I knew that I wanted to meet him, and some of my friends there introduced us. His name is Richard. I was attending Robert Morris Business College at the time, and he was attending another school in the area. We ended up having a two- or three-year relationship, and we are still very close today."