Dionne Warwick in NZ: How the legendary singer changed the world

At the end of the 1980s and in the latter years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, then-US President Ronald Reagan still struggled to say the word AIDS, let alone acknowledge the seriousness of the disease.

But then he had a curveball question at an event. It didn't come from a reporter - it came from American singer and actress Dionne Warwick, one of the first in the music industry to advocate for those with HIV AIDS.

Warwick's question at an event - "And what am I working on, President Reagan, that makes you so proud of me?"- cornered Reagan into one of his first public utterances of the term "AIDS".

"If his eyes could kill me I wouldn't be talking to you today, " Warwick told RNZ's Jim Mora on Sunday Morning.

"'I said, 'It wasn't that hard, was it?'"

Calling Warwick legendary almost shortchanges her achievements. She has won five Grammy Awards, easily made the Billboard Hot 100's list of greatest artists of all-time and her star has been on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 1985. Even at 83, she continues to record and tour.

But music and artistry is just one side of Warwick. Reagan appointed her as an honorary ambassador of health in 1987 and she was a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Warwick stared down racial prejudice time after time and hosted a roundtable of 'gangsta' rappers including Snoop Dogg, over their derogatory references to women.

Ahead of a 2025 tour of New Zealand, Warwick chatted with RNZ's Sunday Morning. (The conversation has been edited for clarity.)

The name of your tour is 'One Last Time', but you seem to be going from strength to strength?

It seems that way doesn't it?

Among your many awards, you were named queen of Twitter [now called X]. You have so many followers [over 600,000] and you gave some advice to Leonard Di Caprio last year?

Yes I did. I basically said, he doesn't know what he is missing with the under 25-year-olds that he only dates. It is crazy.

It has been a long time, but your drummer was not allowed into New Zealand and you were rightly annoyed. His name was Ray Lucas. He had an old cannabis conviction in Canada going back years and they wouldn't let him into the country. It's bizarre.

I totally agree.

There are lots of really interesting stories about you that we can't tell all of in a short time. I think you tell some of them on stage. You persuaded Bill Clinton to run for president. How did you come to put a word in his ear?

My road manager at the time played golf with [Bill Clinton's] brother and I heard Bill Clinton speak on things that he had done for Arkansas as the governor. I said, 'If he can do it for that itty bitty state, look what he could probably do the whole United States,' and I started pursuing it.

We played phone tag for a while and finally we connected and I told him how I felt. He said 'I don't know' and I said 'Well I do.' Subsequently he became our president.

With Ronald Reagan over AIDS, I know you tackled him. You got a bit of a stoney reception, didn't you?

He had problems with saying the word 'AIDS'. I didn't have any idea what the problem was. I finally confronted him in front of a press conference where he had no choice but to say the word. I said, 'It wasn't that hard, was it?' If his eyes could kill me, I wouldn't be talking to you today.

Now is this true: you were once touring with Little Anthony and the Imperials. They would start their show in darkness but with fluorescent gloves on so all the audience saw at first were hand movements. One night, you switched the gloves so they came on stage and nobody saw anything at all.

Nobody saw anything [laughs].

So you were a practical joker?

Oh, every now and then.

You once got the Beatles into the Savoy Hotel when they were refused entry. You said you wouldn't perform unless they let them in didn't you?

Right. What was the purpose in not letting them in? There was no reason for them not to come in to see the show, and as it turns about they were let in and seated very prominently.

The story about you once summoning Snoop Dogg to your home. He tells that story. That is correct as well?

Absolutely. I didn't just summon him. It was six or seven of the acts at that point in time known as 'gangsta rappers', whatever that meant. I called them all to a meeting and said, 'Let's talk about it.' I made a demand on them and they followed the demand and we had a wonderful five or six hours of conversing with these young men.

So your demand was to basically change their attitude towards women?

Absolutely. The way that they were referring to young ladies. I let them know I had never seen a young lady walk around with a tail or walking on four legs, so why are you referring to them as what a young dog is known as [a 'bitch'] as opposed to finding out what the young ladies are all about?

Did they tone down the lyrics after you talked to them?

Yes they did. We all came to the conclusion that there were ways that they could say whatever they needed to say, but in a way that was palatable to everybody's ears.

The influence you have had and the famous people you have met - didn't [the German actress and singer] Marlene Dietrich change the way you looked at one point?

She took me shopping, yes, which was much to the chagrin of my accountants. She introduced me to couture to which I have become very accustomed to and am still very accustomed to. She felt that was the way I should look and I agreed.

You've had to cross a racial divide. When they released your first record in France, they put a white woman on the cover.

Yes they did. They didn't know what I looked like. They knew what I sounded like but never knew that I was a black woman. I showed up and everybody was on the shocked side. 'Is that really Dionne Warwick?' Then I opened my mouth and started singing. That is when everybody said, 'Oh my god, it is her.'

There was a gasp from the audience the first night when you performed.

Oh, was there ever. When I walked out on stage after my name was announced and it was like 'Who is that?' They had no idea of what I looked like. It has been quite a few decades now, but this kind of rhetoric is still going on.

I know I have to let you go now. All the best for the tour here, Dionne.

Thank you darling. See you when I get there.

Dionne Warwick has shows in Auckland on 21 January and in Christchurch on 25 January.