It's a romance and friendship that stretches back at least a quarter of a
century.
But when word of Aretha Franklin's engagement emerged early this week,
plenty of folks were left asking: Who, exactly, is Willie Wilkerson?
Wilkerson, a 64-year-old Detroit native, is described as friendly, funny,
personable, outgoing. But the retired firefighter, who successfully proposed
to Franklin over the holidays, is also something of a mystery man, cloaked by
the same intense privacy that has long marked the Queen of Soul's personal
life.
One longtime Franklin associate says many friends learned of the
engagement through media reports.
Still, if you were looking closely over the years, you couldn't have
missed him: A strapping Vietnam War veteran with a love of Cadillacs --
"Cadillac Willie" is a nickname -- Wilkerson has been a sturdy, steady
presence at Franklin's side, often glimpsed at her annual Christmas parties
and birthday bashes. Since meeting in the mid-1980s, the two have enjoyed an
enduring friendship amid an on-again-off-again romance.
Wilkerson makes an ideal mate for Franklin, friends say: A regular guy
with a working-class background, he offers the sort of grounding long craved
by the singer behind "A Natural Woman." But he's also debonair enough to
navigate the highbrow world that comes with the Queen of Soul's public life.
"To find a guy who can deal with the female who has much attention, fame
and fortune -- I think he passed the test," says Greg Dunmore, a Franklin
family friend. "She knows she can really confide in him. These are things that
anybody wants in a relationship, but certainly with somebody as well-known and
wealthy as Aretha, those qualities of loyalty and friendship take on even
greater value."
The couple are aiming to wed this summer, likely in New York's swanky
Hamptons district, Franklin told the Associated Press on earlier this week.
Franklin, who will turn 70 in March, is contemplating a dress designed by
Donna Karan or Vera Wang, with a wedding-singer shortlist that includes
Detroit stars Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and Karen Clark Sheard.
This isn't the couple's first wedding plan: They were briefly engaged in
1987, the same year Jet magazine profiled the couple in a bubbly cover story.
"I know who she is and I have all the respect in the world for what she's
accomplished," Wilkerson told Jet at the time. "But it's still the lady that
counts."
Through the years, other suitors came and went, but it was Wilkerson who
seemed to be Franklin's rock: "Will and I are very close," she told Jet in
2007. "We stayed close and he escorts me on occasion, and we're just cool."
They'd met in about 1985 at a Franklin concert at Cobo Arena, recalls
Reginald Amos, a retired deputy chief with the Detroit Fire Department and
friend of Wilkerson. He'd come as a fan.
"Willie was there in the front row just taking in the show, hooting and
hollering -- he's an outgoing guy -- and she started a conversation with him
during the show," Amos says. "They ended up making a great team."
The two of them, it turned out, were already closer than they realized:
Both had apartments in Detroit's Riverfront Towers.
Wilkerson was a driver with Engine 53 on Detroit's west side when he
retired in the early '90s. He remains a widely respected figure in the Detroit
firefighting family -- "a hell of a firefighter," Amos calls him.
For more than a decade, Wilkerson was the top ticket seller for the
department's annual Fireman's Field Day, a benefit for the families of injured
and deceased firefighters.
His favorite sales spot: the sidewalk in front of the former Hudson's
department store on Woodward. Amos says Wilkerson once chased down a man who
had snatched an elderly woman's purse.
"He tackled the guy and held him until the police arrived," says Amos.
For the twice-married Queen of Soul, Wilkerson provided strength and
sympathy, says Amos.
"Willie, without question, brought happiness to Aretha, because she'd
been through some low points," he says. "You notice they're always smiling.
He's treated her right through the years."
Wilkerson, it seems, knew what Franklin was looking for.
"For those who want to know what Aretha is really like, a singer of the
people, it shouldn't be surprising that the relationship she'd seek would be
very much normal -- like the people who have been her fans for years and
years," says Dunmore.
Dunmore says friends and fans of Franklin can find inspiration in her
wedding news.
"Think of all the times she has sung about love, moving people and
captivating hearts," he says. "If anybody is deserving of the love she sings
about, it's Aretha herself."
