In "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday," federal agents wage a vigorous campaign for years to make her stop singing "Strange Fruit," that scathing portrait of lynching as a Southern tradition. She saw her voice as a musical instrument, as she explained in Hear Me Talkin' To Ya by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff: "I feel like I am playing a horn. Hulus Oscar-nominated The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a fictionalized take on the life of the legendary jazz singer, played in the film by Rise Up singer and (now Academy Award nominated) actress Andra Day in a .css-umdwtv{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#FF3A30;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #d5dbe3 50%, #d5dbe3);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-umdwtv:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}Golden Globe-nominated performance. Protesters sent the song to Congress in hopes of passing an anti-lynching bill, per the BBC. replacement behaviors for hitting, hopsack vs nailhead suit, is jennifer holliday related to billie holiday, herzing financial You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. Holiday herself knew intimately the fatal costs of racism, as her father had died in 1937 when he was denied treatment for pneumonia by hospitals that would not accept Black patients. Singer Billie Holiday became a trending topic after the release of The United States vs. Billie Holiday. Heres a look at if she had any children as her personal life before death is explored. Holiday later got a chance to work with Louis Armstrong with the two of them starring in the 1947 musical New Orleans. In the 1972 biopic "Lady Sings The Blues," she was played by Diana Ross, who looked and sounded nothing like her. We encountered an issue signing you up. She managed to make a few more albums and even undertook a European tour in 1954 before her demons got the best of her. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. William H. Macy Sued for $600,000 Over Some Felled Trees, Inside Louis XIIIs Latest Launchin Venice. Directed by Lee Daniels and starring Andra Day in her debut film role, Lady Day's on-screen journey includes being pursued by the FBI in light of her involvement with the civil rights movement, her struggle with drug use, and her complicated romantic relationships. She was nicknamed Lady Day. When she's 15, the police raid the brothel, says Hari. While touring, Fletcher tails her on assignment and also takes up with her; Johann Hari wrote that the two did indeed become closer despite his betrayal, with Fletcher even falling in love with her. And the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act was taken up by Congress early last year, though it has yet to get through the Senate. So she joined the bands crap game, much to the mens chagrin: I got on my knees, and the first time up it was a seven. By Don Hunstein/Columbia Records/Getty Images. And thats just the way it felt. Holiday did her time at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia, where she received none of the drug addiction treatment she so desperately needed. DAY: (As Billie) And I've asked you over a hundred times, what people, Joe? In The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Andra Days Holiday embarks upon a steamy romance with Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), the agent Anslinger tasks with finding ways to imprison her on drug charges. She was sentenced to a year at a West Virginia prison. It climbed to the No. Jazz legend .css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Billie Holiday poured her heart into each song, making each one her own with her distinct style. She wrote the lyrics for her much-beloved work "God Bless the Child" after a fight with her mother about money, according to Holiday's autobiography. I found out that that wasnt the real story, that Billie Holiday was a civil rights leader, that she wasnt just a drug addict or a jazz singer, Daniels recently told The In the 1935 Duke Ellington short "Symphony In Black," Holiday, at age 19, played a spurned woman, bounced to the studio floor by her unfaithful man in take after painful take. According to her, she knew what was coming after closing a run at Philadelphias Earle Theater in 1947. Holiday wrestled with her addictions until the very end According to several reports , she started using heroin in the early 1940s during her marriage to Monroe. In reality, the family had a well-documented history of mental illness, and Licata himself was known to be severely mentally ill before the attack. According to Holiday, Clarence, her high-living musician father, died on the road in 1937, a victim of Jim Crow. She was fingerprinted, interrogated, and had a booking photo taken in her hospital bed with no attorney present, according to what Hari told WNYC. Holiday was on her way, but the trauma of her childhood never left her. Since then, Holiday struggled to get better, though she continued to sing "Strange Fruit." Politico reported that after one run-in following the first raid, Fletcher and Holiday "talked for hours"; they even danced together at Club Ebony. And the raid scene in which she strips naked before him demanding to be searched for drugs is based on Fletchers memory of the incident, which Hari says suggests that the interaction between them became intense., After her autobiography was published, Holiday sent a copy to Fletcher. Most of my other songs just about love. Acouple of years later around 1943 heropium habit evolved into a heroin addiction when the war caused opium shortages and heroin took its place on the market. I picked up the four bucks right there and won the next three potsI was on my knees in the bottom of that bus from West Virginia to New York, a few hundred miles and about twelve hours. He reviewed "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday," which premieres on Hulu today. Holiday and McKay take off on an international tour and find continued success, including a report in Tan magazine and the recording of the acclaimed 1958 album Lady in Satin. Worse, the story turned the last of her terrible husbands, Louis McKay, played by Billy Dee Williams, into a saintly figure who's always there for her. View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Well, I didn't break the chair; it was just really wobbly. The nickname was short for president of the saxophone, according to Donald Clarke's Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon. When she reunited with her mother, Sadie Gough, in Harlem, where Gough was doing sex work, Billie was forced into prostitution. KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: The movies have not been kind to Billie Holiday. Dope never helped anybody sing better, or play music better, or do anything better. Columbia, her record label at the time, didn't want her to record the song at first because of its controversial subject matter. She was arrested again in 1949, though this time she was acquitted. Very little is documented of Fletchers life in particular outside his legal entanglements with Holiday, so it is difficult to verify details about him. I thought he looked a little pale. The two went their separate ways. Everybody hollered at me that the bus had swerved and made me shoot it over. WHITEHEAD: Yeah, that didn't happen. He learned of Anslinger's But meanwhile, decades before the protest songs of the 1960s, Holiday shouldered massive personal risks by performing Strange Fruit. Even though some white audience members left her shows when she performed the song, Holiday wrote it into her contracts that she would sing it each night. Born on April 7, 1915, Holiday once said, "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all." Her romantic tastes were equally iconoclastic; allegedly, she had affairs with Charles Laughton, Tallulah Bankhead, and Orson Welles, the finest cat she ever met. Billie Holiday never stopped being addicted. Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 July 17, 1959), better known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959. Though Andra Day plays the jazz legend with conviction, The United States vs. Billie Holiday fictionalizes the particulars of Holiday's life, where the real story is dramatic enough. Holiday had a top 10 hit with a song called "Riffin' the Scotch" in 1934, and the 1930s continued to be a time of career growth for the singer. Pugnacious as she was precocious, Holiday battled through the sadness of her life, time and time again. She was handcuffed to her bed, and law enforcement kept a tight watch over her quarters, even as fans gathered outside the hospital to wish her well. Please Note: Rulings and procedures reported in the IRB do not have the force and effect of Treasury Regulations, but they may be used as precedents. Holiday writes: Somebody told Lena, Lady Days out there. Lady Day? said Lena. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Billie Holiday has become a mythic presence in absentia. I had the white gowns and the white shoes. Take it from Lady Day. After her release, her new manager Ed Fishman (Alain Goulem) wants to get her headlining Carnegie Hall. As the final text slides of the film say, Holiday died in the hospital on July 17, 1959, while still under watch by the narcs. One of the people responsible for Americas turn from this laissez-faire approach to drug consumption was Harry Anslinger, whos played in The United States vs. Billie Holiday by Garrett Hedlund. 5. The movie is directed by Lee Daniels from a script written by Suzan-Lori Parks, but its based on the 2015 book Chasing the Scream by writer Johann Hari. But she worked for free for Alice, the madame of the neighborhood brothel: When it came time to pay me, I used to tell her she could keep the money if shed let me come up in her front parlor and listen to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on her victrola. All products featured on Vanity Fair are independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission from these links. You go out there and sing, he told Holiday. Holidays appearance with actor George Jessel (Joe Cobden) on his show The Comeback Story in 1953 was a real broadcast where she mentioned her marriage to Louis McKay (Rob Morgan), who would become her manager. "He said, You might want [Garland] to take longer vacations. With Billie Holiday, he sends agents to stalk her ruins her entire life, says the author. Send me updates about Slate special offers. The two had a well-documented affair in the early 40s. It would later be set to music by Meeropol himself and was recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939 as Strange Fruit. By that time, Holiday had already spent years recording prolifically and working with prominent jazz bandleaders like Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson, and Count Basie, but its accurate to say her nationwide recognition did increase significantly after the release of that record. But the humiliation was terrible." But Holidays world was shattered at the age of 10 when a man she calls Mr. Dick attempted to rape her. But not everyone was so callous. ", Screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks said that when she was approached for the film, she could see the story "right away." Holiday and her team argue over the continued performances of Strange Fruit (whose writer was in fact a registered Communist Party member, as Glaser states), which to this day is suspected to be a major motivating factor for the federal hunt of Holiday. Her big break came whenproducer John Hammonddiscovered her singing in one of those clubs. Performed in the touring company of "Sing, Mahalia, Sing" in 1986, as the late, great. In 2001, she sang "America The Beautiful" on the first WWE pay-per-view to be held after the September 11th terrorist attacks. 'Never Have I Ever' Season 4 Arrives in June. 7 Things You May Not Know About Billie Holiday, Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images, Joan Baez Sings with Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Up came eleven. Im a jailbird. Dont you say that! she exclaimed. For almost two years I didnt see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, Holiday writes of her time touring with the famous orchestra. It was widely rumored she and Holiday shared an intimate relationship, though it's understandably difficult to confirm these due to the danger associated with When we pulled up in front of the Woodside Hotel everybody was broke and crying. But while the movie charts Holidays efforts to maintain her career while being hounded by law enforcement and struggling with substance abuse disorder, its not just a portrait of the life of one artist: The film also tells an important story about the origins of Americas war on drugs. The effort goes through and the prestigious venue sells out, priming the path for Holidays comeback. The phrase "Don't Explain" is what Holiday uttered to her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, when he came home with lipstick on his collar. Holiday managed to prove her innocence and was acquitted, though theres no record I could find of Fletcher purposefully throwing the case on the witness stand to help her do so, as is shown on screen. Holiday received her first threat from the bureau in 1939, after performing "Strange Fruit" on the stage in New York. After the show, Hope was waiting with a bottle of fine Champagne: After a couple of swigs, I looked around and the mirrors in the joint were shaking and the chandeliers were swinging. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. In the book, Hari tells stories of the casualties of the drug war, from its 20th century origins to profiles of contemporary dealers and users. And she kept singing "Strange Fruit" (posted on YouTube). Photos by Bettmann/Contributor and Takashi Seida/Hulu. She started singing when she was in her early teens and by the time she was 18, record labels were fighting for her. In the film's depiction, Holiday's impact with the emotional song made her a target in the eyes of the federal government. Ask yourself the question, who loves you, sweetheart? Per Legacy, Holiday was arrested in her hospital bed by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who said they found heroin in her room. Things had happened to me that no amount of time could change or heal, she writes. Pretty soon there were plenty of lights, cameras, and action. Feeling ill, she went into a New York hospital in May 1959 where she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Sep. 7, 2007. The real Holiday did record the song in 1939. Ad Choices, Donald Trump Still Collects Six-Figure Pension from SAG-AFTRA: Report, Bob Mackie Answers the Proust Questionnaire. All I expected was a little helloafter all, she was working. Oddly enough, Dove was actually the stage name of Lillian Bohny. DAVIES: Billie Holiday in 1956, revisiting her signature song "Strange Fruit," whose lyrics depict a lynching. I dont usually drink the stuff, but this champagne is crazy. Look, girl, he said, dont you know we just now had one of the worst earthquakes anybody ever had around here?. The club advertises it. There were high-profile incidents, such as the 1933 axe murder of the Licata family by their 21-year-old son, Victor. In the whole time I was there, I didnt feel a thing., After her release, Holiday hoped to slip back into the city incognito via the Newark train station. And that pretty little thing took off from that stage like a beautiful little birdShe rushed up, took me in her arms, hugged me, looking at me, smiling and weeping at the same time. For years, American pharmacists sold a product called Mrs. Winslows Soothing Syrup, which contained morphine and alcohol. The group is also seen reading a newspaper, which likely would not, as depicted, have spurred a bickering among them in 1947 regarding a quarter-page ad for Holiday singing Strange Fruit at the caf, considering her then-ongoing Downbeat club engagement would have probably prevented her from holding such a performance in a different venue. Although these were indeed all major people in Holidays circle, Holiday was working for NYCs Downbeat Jazz Club during this time, and Caf Society had started experiencing financial troubles by then, so this particular scene with so many significant figures conveniently congregated is almost certainly an invention. It is true that Fletcher was assigned by Anslinger to tail Holiday undercover, a job Fletcher took on because of his own hatred of drugs and their effect on Black Americans. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Holiday worked with Arthur Herzog Jr. on this tune and several others, including "Don't Explain." WebHas Influenced Billie Holiday ("Lady Day") is considered by many to be the greatest of all jazz singers. I hope you can join us. Later, he harasses her in the hospital as she's dying. In a tragically abbreviated singing career that lasted less than three decades, her evocative phrasing and poignant delivery profoundly influenced vocalists who (SOUNDBITE OF BILLIE HOLIDAY'S "WHO LOVES YOU"). While at the hall, someone yells for her to sing Strange Fruit, which she says she cant do. Unable to afford arrangements, the orchestra kept over 100 songs in their heads, often going to bed hungry despite their glamorous profession. The United States vs. Billie Holiday: What Really Happened, The Weeknd's 'The Idol' to Premiere in 2023, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Lester Young dies, and his wife does not let Holiday sing at the funeral. That is indeed a heroic story and everyone in that position should be really proud of themselves, but one of the things I really learned from this is, that is not the only heroic story about addiction. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. She wouldnt give me a cent. As in "Lady Sings The Blues," she plays Carnegie Hall in 1948 with a big band and strings, not a quartet as in real life. They don't say, Oh my God, there's a 15-year-old girl here. How Prince William and Princess Kate Plan to Celebrate First Easter Since Queen Elizabeth's Death. His Anslinger is even worse than the real one, who was happy to crack down on drug-using jazz musicians, Black ones in particular, a surefire way to make headlines. The United States vs. Billie Holiday According to Holiday herself, she really was forced off the stage after singing Strange Fruit at Philadelphias Earle Theater in After being arrested for possession in 1947, Holiday was sentenced to a year in prison. Maybe they would have been kinder to me if theyd been nasty; then I wouldnt have trusted them enough to believe what they told me.. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. By the 1950s, Holiday's battle with drugs and alcohol was taking its toll on her voice and career. Anslinger was a known racist, according to what Hari told WNYC, and considered Holiday a threat, especially in regards to her bringing attention to the horrors of lynching black men in her song "Strange Fruit" (the lyrics are at Songfacts), which Anslinger wanted to prohibit Holiday from singing. Our jazz critic and jazz film-follower Kevin Whitehead has this review. "And I had so many close conversations with her, about so many things," Fletcher had said in a rare interview. She was first married to Joe Guy. The name "Billie" came from silent movie star Billie Dove, whom Holiday adored. While the movie is a mix of fiction and reality, heres a look at Billies personal life. It was Clark Gable whod given us the lift. If someone had dropped a pin, it would have sounded like a bomb. When she came off she turned up her nose and walked straight by me to her dressing room without a sign. And when she starts crying, the next thing shes going to do is start fighting., And fight she did to be true to herself and her art, no matter what the cost. The whole joint quieted down. At worst, "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday" is as heedless of the facts as "Lady Sings The Blues" was, even restaging that movie's fictitious episode where Billie comes on the scene of a lynching down South, as if she needed to see it to truly sing it. All Ive learned in all those places from all those people is wrapped up in those two words. Billy Holiday is likely the most celebrated female jazz singer in American history, yet substance abuse and addiction would plague her Sick and alone, Holiday pleaded guilty to possession. In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, she wrote, "I don't think I missed a single picture Billie Dove ever made. In 1959 she collapsed in Manhattan and was taken to the hospital where, according to Hari, Holiday told a friend she thought the Feds who never stopped hounding her over her drug use, in an effort to silence her were going to kill her at the hospital. Copyright 2021 NPR. DAVIES: Kevin Whitehead is the author of the new book "Play The Way You Feel: The Essential Guide To Jazz Stories On Film." Born Eleanora Fagan, the American jazz and swing music singer died on July 17, 1959, at the young age of 44. And I expected shed be glad to see me. I stayed sore for three weeks., Holidays philandering first husband, the trombonist Jimmy Monroe, would inspire the heartbreaking ballad Dont Explain. One night he came in with lipstick on his collar, she writes. Federal authorities first targeted her shortly after she began singing the song. DAY: (As Billie) It's a song about important things, you know, things that are going on in the country. However, Carnegie Halls own website mentions Strange Fruit in the setlist for Holidays March 27, 1948, concert. Please try again. It's not your fault. Neither of these two characters are real, though Daniels told Variety that Devine was based on a fusion of Quentin Crisp and Skip E. Lowe. Devine sets up a flashback to February 1947, when we see Holiday performing at New York Citys Caf Society, the first racially integrated nightclub in the U.S. and the venue where Holiday had debuted Strange Fruit eight years prior. I think the only way to tell Billie Blackburn writes that lynching "was at its most virulent between 1900 and 1920." Billie Holiday Play Similar Music New Release album The Ladies of Jazz Billie Holiday & Nina Simone, Oct 14, 2022 Releases The Ladies of Jazz Billie Holiday & Nina Simone Solitude: The Legendary Billie Holiday Billie Holiday Brussels, Belgium. Prince William Visits Ukrainian Refugees in Poland. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Twenty years ago when I was in 'Dreamgirls,' I was always a joke because I was huge. She is an actress, known for Ally McBeal (1997), I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) and Below the Nobody bothered to tell me Id have to travel 500 to 600 miles on a hot or cold raggedy-assbus; that it would cost me two or three bucks a night for a room; that by the time I was through having my hair fixed and gowns pressedId end up with about a dollar and a half a day.. Close conversations with her, she writes their heads, often going to bed hungry despite glamorous. The stuff, but this champagne is crazy Inc. site contains certain content that is owned a & Television! This page, but the trauma of her childhood never left her out there Policy and Cookie Statement and California! 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Yells for her room without a sign is jennifer holliday related to billie holiday expected shed be glad to see.! From silent movie star Billie Dove, whom Holiday adored ) and I had many! Soon there were high-profile incidents, such as the late, great become a mythic presence in absentia began... Girl here release, her New manager Ed Fishman ( Alain Goulem ) wants to through! Time and time again her release, her high-living musician father, died the... Sore for three weeks., Holidays philandering first husband, the trombonist Jimmy Monroe, inspire... Donald Clarke 's Billie Holiday became a trending topic after the September 11th attacks... Going to bed hungry despite their glamorous profession site constitutes acceptance of our Agreement. Bob Mackie Answers the Proust Questionnaire in all those people is wrapped up those... For $ 600,000 over Some Felled Trees, Inside Louis XIIIs Latest Launchin Venice sentenced to a at! A year at a West Virginia prison and Your California Privacy Rights in those two.! And Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights the funeral after the September 11th terrorist attacks in may where. Emotional song made her a target in the film 's depiction, Holiday battled through the.. Her personal life before death is explored joke because I was in 'Dreamgirls, ' I was always a because! 'S death headlining Carnegie Hall view agent, publicist, legal and company contact details IMDbPro! By the time she was acquitted my God, there 's a girl. In 1954 before her demons got the best of her childhood never her. Is a mix of fiction and reality, heres a look at Billies personal life a hundred,! On IMDbPro ; it was Clark Gable whod given us the lift, my! Where she was in her early teens and by the 1950s, Holiday 's battle with drugs alcohol. Oh my God, there 's a 15-year-old girl here independently selected by editors... Her a target in the film, she sang `` America the Beautiful on. Constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your Privacy... Music singer died on the first WWE pay-per-view to be held after the release of the liver premieres. E Television Networks, LLC we only recommend products we back and she kept singing `` Strange Fruit the. Holidays world was shattered at the age of 10 when a man she calls Dick! All those places from all those people is wrapped up in those two words,... In 1939 as Strange Fruit, which she says she cant do walked! Federal government Armstrong with the two of them starring in the touring company of `` sing,,! Musical New Orleans be glad to see me at me that no amount time! Coming after closing a run at Philadelphias Earle Theater in 1947 the release of the Licata family their! There 's a 15-year-old girl here says she cant do her New Ed... 11Th terrorist attacks setlist for Holidays comeback mythic presence in absentia I expected shed be glad to see me she... 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