Stephanie Dorthea Mills, the fifth of six children, was born on March 22, 1957, in Queens, New York, to Joseph and Christine Mills, but she was raised in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant district. She began singing gospel music at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant at a young age.
Mills, then 11, played Pansy in the Broadway musical Maggie Flynn in 1968. Movin’ in the Right Direction, her debut album for ABC Records, was released in 1974 when she was 17 years old. The following year, 1975, Mills rose to fame as Dorothy in the Broadway musical production of The Wiz, an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre. The show won seven Tony Awards, including one for Mills’ performance of the central aria “Home.”
Mills had a streak of successes between 1979 and 1989. In 1979, she recorded “What Cha Gonna Do With My Lovin’,” which reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for 24 weeks, selling over a million copies. In 1979, her single earned her a Grammy for “Best R&B Song.” It was followed by the 1980 smash “Never Knew Love Like This Before,” which peaked at no. 6 and stayed on the US charts for 25 weeks, as well as reaching no. 4 in the UK. That song earned her a second Grammy for “Best Female R&B Vocal Performance” in 1980.
Her second song, “Sweet Sensation,” reached at number three in the United States and stayed on the charts for 21 weeks. She won a third Grammy in 1981 for “Best Female R&B Vocalist” for that song, and she married R&B singer/choreographer Jeffrey Glenn Daniel shortly afterwards. “Two Hearts,” Mills’ 1980 duet with Teddy Pendergrass, peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for 19 weeks. Stephanie Mills was released in 1981, and she won an American Music Award for “Best Female R&B Vocalist” for it. She divorced Daniel two years later, in 1983.
Mills won the NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Female Artist” in 1987 for her hits “I Feel Good All Over” and “Home.” Both songs were from the show The Wiz and reached number one and were on the charts for 18 weeks in 1987 and 1989, respectively. She got the NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Female Artist” for the second time.
Mills was married to Dino Meminger, an actor from Tioga County, New York, from 1989 to 1991. Farad Mills was their only child. Following her divorce in 1991, she recorded “Real Love,” which peaked at number 53 on the US R&B chart. She married Michael Saunders in a ceremony officiated by Minister Louis Farrakhan in 1993. In 2001, she and Saunders divorced.
Stephanie Mills recorded 13 albums during her career, including Personal Inspirations, a gospel CD released in 1994. In 2018, she was recognized for her musical talents at the 3rd Annual Black Music Honors at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville. She released the single “Let’s Do the Right Thing” in 2021, which condemned murder and violence and was inspired by the murder of George Floyd a year earlier.