Lady Sings the Blues (film)

Lady Sings the Blues is a 1972 American biographical drama film directed by Sidney J. Furie about jazz singer Billie Holiday loosely based on her 1956 autobiography which, in turn, took its title from one of Holiday's most popular songs. It was produced by Motown Productions for Paramount Pictures. Diana Ross portrayed Holiday, alongside a cast including Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, James T. Callahan, and Scatman Crothers.

Plot

In 1936, New York City, Billie Holiday is arrested on a drugs charge.

In a flashback to 1928, Billie is working as a housekeeper in a brothel in Baltimore where she is raped. She runs away to her mother, who sets up a job cleaning for another brothel in the Harlem section of New York. The brothel is run by an arrogant, selfish owner who pays Billie very little money.

Eventually, Billie tires of scrubbing floors and becomes a prostitute, but later quits and returns to a nightclub to unsuccessfully audition to become a showgirl. After "Piano Man" (Richard Pryor) accompanies Billie "All of Me", Jerry, the club owner, books her as a singer in the show.

Lady Sings the Blues

Lady Sings the Blues may refer to:

Lady Sings the Blues (Billie Holiday album)

Lady Sings the Blues is an album by American jazz vocalist Billie Holiday. It was Holiday's last album released on Clef Records; the following year, the label would be absorbed by Verve Records. Lady Sings the Blues was taken from sessions taped during 1954 and 1956. It was released simultaneously with her ghostwritten autobiography of the same name.

Content

Taken from sessions taped during 1954–56, Lady Sings the Blues features Holiday backed by tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette, trumpeter Charlie Shavers, pianist Wynton Kelly, and guitarist Kenny Burrell. Though Holiday's voice had arguably deteriorated by the 1950s, the album is well regarded – in a 1956 review, Down Beat awarded the album 5 out of 5 stars, and had this to say about the co-current book:

On November 10, 1956, Holiday appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall in front of a sold out crowd. The show was planned to commemorate the edition of her autobiography, some paragraphs being read during the performance.

Lady Sings the Blues (book)

Lady Sings the Blues (1956) is an autobiography by jazz singer Billie Holiday, which was co-authored by William Dufty. The book formed the basis of the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross.

Overview

The life story of jazz singer Billie Holiday told in her own words. Holiday writes candidly of sexual abuse, confinement to institutions, heroin addiction, and the struggles of being African American before the rise of the Civil Rights movement.

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Dufty's aim was "to let Holiday tell her story her way. Fact checking wasn't his concern." Since its publication, the book has been criticized for factual inaccuracies.

In his introduction to the 2006 edition of Lady Sings the Blues, music biographer David Ritz writes: "(Holiday's) voice, no matter how the Dufty/Holiday interviewing process went, is as real as rain." Despite some factual inaccuracies, according to Ritz, "in the mythopoetic sense, Holiday's memoir is as true and poignant as any tune she ever sang. If her music was autobiographically true, her autobiography is musically true."