Most of my other songs just about love. But having Billie leave her band stranded down South in the middle of a tour is a low blow. Billie herself would tell the same story several ways. Still, there are chronicles of Holidays life from this period we can reference to figure out: How much of The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday is true to history? She was arrested again in 1949, though this time she was acquitted. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. She starts up a relationship with Levy for a while, which devolves into the club owner taking advantage of her, abusing her, and not paying her the money shes owed. This is true to Anslingers biography. This newspaper does serve as an introduction to another major figure: Harry J. Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), then head of the Treasury Departments Federal Bureau of Narcotics and one of the primary leaders of the governments effort to stifle Holiday. She took enough of it to know, she writes. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. 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. After moving to New York with her mother in the late 1920s, she endured another sexual assault at 14. But I kept driving right on.I pulled away through a rain of bullets. I spent many a wonderful hour there listening to Pops and Bessie. A later scene shows Levy planting drugs on Holiday and setting her up for another arrest by Fletcher and the feds; although an old Oakland Tribune article reports that Holiday and Levy were both arrested during the early-1949 raid, the setup does appear to have been coordinated by Levy. WHITEHEAD: Yeah, that didn't happen. 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. Billy Holiday is likely the most celebrated female jazz singer in American history, yet substance abuse and addiction would plague her until her death at only 44 years old. Made-up incidents can illustrate some higher truth about the power of a protest song or a singer's personal magnetism. Shortly after she left West Virginia, a friend took her backstage after Vaughans show: The people hanging around there were wonderful, the air was full of Hi, baby and oo-papa-da and everybody telling me how great I looked. Oh, who just longs for your caresses? Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Im the girl who went West in 1937 with sixteen white cats, Artie Shaw and his Rolls-Royceand the hills were full of white crackers, Holiday writes. All products featured on Vanity Fair are independently selected by our editors. During her childhood, she also used her stepfather's last name, Gough, after her mother married longshoreman Phil Gough for a time. A previous headline misspelled Billie Holiday's last name as Holliday. I was glad to see her. The image so deeply disturbed him that he penned the poem in protest of racial violence. TREVANTE RHODES: (As Jimmy Fletcher) Pardon me for asking, but why is that song so important to us? That part of the story is fictionalized, but the agent did speak of her notable affection. (SOUNDBITE OF BILLIE HOLIDAY'S "WHO LOVES YOU"). All rights reserved. In the Broadway musical production of "Your Arms Too Short To Box With God", her performance earned her a 1981 Drama Desk nomination. It's pure poppycock, but Andra Day and Trevante Rhodes have good sexual chemistry onscreen, bringing some charm and romance to a mostly dreary narrative. I know Lady, Louis Armstrong once said. Slate is published by The Slate Oddly enough, Dove was actually the stage name of Lillian Bohny. "Dreamgirls" earned her not only a Tony, but Drama Desk and Theatre World Awards; she also won a Grammy Award for her recorded version of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going". It was called The United States of America versus Billie Holiday, she writes of her trial (also the title of the upcoming Lee Daniels film starring Andra Day as Holiday). A voice-over from Devine mentions that a cast of important figures in Holidays life were all there that night, including singer and activist Lena Horne, actress Tallulah Bankhead, manager Joe Glaser (Dusan Dukic), and Holidays then-husband Jimmy Monroe (Erik LaRay Harvey). Anslinger appearing before a congressional subcommittee in 1955. Perhaps the most important song Holiday would ever sing was Strange Fruit. Written by communist poet and teacher Abel Meeropol after he saw a photo of lynched Black men, the song describes the bodies of lynching victims hanging from southern trees like the strange fruit of its title. Toward the end of one tour, Holiday despaired about coming back to her mother broke. According to Biography, White busted Holiday at San Francisco's Mark Twain Hotel, even though she claimed to have been clean for a year. Photo illustration by Slate. As is seen in the movie, the feds tailed her even while she was in this condition, planting drugs in her room and attempting to get her to name her dealer. Up came eleven. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. There were high-profile incidents, such as the 1933 axe murder of the Licata family by their 21-year-old son, Victor. The courtroom scene implies that Glaser was responsible for setting Holiday up in this instance, which is true. Before she found fame as a singer, Holiday did whatever it took to survive, including working a prostitute for a while. A victrola was a big deal in those days, and there werent any parlors around that had one except Alices. Jennifer Holliday was born in Riverside, TX on Wednesday, October 19, 1960 (Baby Boomers Generation). Police were stationed at her door to stop her visitors from seeing her. 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. 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. Our jazz critic and jazz film-follower Kevin Whitehead has this review. 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. Her great talent, however, was later diminished by bad relationships and alcohol and drug abuse. Holiday arriving at a court hearing in 1947. 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. You've heard those lyrics. 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. Group, a Graham Holdings Company. I was crazy for her." It was Clark Gable whod given us the lift. While its widely known that Coca-Cola used to contain actual cocaine, that wasnt the only place you could find now-illegal drugs. GARRETT HEDLUND: (As Harry Anslinger) Hoover says it's un-American. He laughed when I told him I recognized him by his fist work., While singing at Caf Society in the San Fernando Valley one night, Holiday was ready to quit after being harassed during her first two shows by a white audience member. In prison, Holiday spent her time knitting, making whiskey from potato peelings, and taking care of a herd of damn dirty squealing pigs. One thing she didnt do was sing. Her raw, all-consuming vocal version of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" made the Tony-winning performer a cult phenomenon. WHITEHEAD: In some ways, "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday" offers a corrective to "Lady Sings The Blues." In the film's depiction, Holiday's impact with the emotional song made her a target in the eyes of the federal government. DAY: (As Billie, singing) Southern trees. He'd heard rumblings that the singer was using heroin and assigned Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), a Black FBI agent, to follow her, journalist Johann Hari revealed in his book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, per Politico. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. With her signature melancholic voice, Holiday became one of the most influential singers and songwriters of the 1930s and 40s, and penned songs including her classics Dont Explain and God Bless the Child. Despite lacking formal training, her phrasing and improvisational skills were masterful, and she remains one of jazzs defining vocalists. WebJennifer Holliday was born on October 19, 1960 in Houston, Texas, USA. Photos by Bettmann/Contributor and Takashi Seida/Hulu. Holiday was on her way, but the trauma of her childhood never left her. She was the daughter of Sarah Julia Sadie (Fagan) and Clarence Holiday, who was a jazz banjo player and guitarist. This should never have happened to you. They sent her to prison. She would later endure relationships with abusive men, and became addicted to alcohol and heroin. Across the pond, the pharmacist for Queen Victoria, the global paragon of propriety, prescribed the royal family cocaine and heroin. 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. I cut him off, just like that. Ive been told that nobody sings the word hunger like I do. Two years after losing her insurance, Jennifer Holliday finally got the operation she needed to regain the use of an arm mangled in a shotgun blast. You don't have to take three guesses. Though in both those films she got to sing, too. Drugs were banned in the United States in a moment of deep, racist determination and hysteria, he says. 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. The effort goes through and the prestigious venue sells out, priming the path for Holidays comeback. Over the next decade, Holiday continued drinking heavily, smoking, and abusing heroin. 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. 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. According to Holidays autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, she was arraigned there on drug charges stemming from the hotel raid and sentenced to serve at least a year at the all-woman Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. But not everyone was so callous. When she was finally released, she had lost her cabaret license, prohibiting her from performing where alcohol was servedmeaning she couldn't perform at jazz clubs. We may earn a commission from these links. Chinese-Americans, racists warned, were luring white women into their opium dens for sex. Billie Holiday comes down with cirrhosis of the liver and is hospitalized. But trouble arrives again when Holiday relapses. "And his whole life, he felt really guilty about what he did. And the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act was taken up by Congress early last year, though it has yet to get through the Senate. According to several reports, she started using heroin in the early 1940s during her marriage to Monroe. She was raised in Baltimore, mostly by her mothers half-sister Eva Miller and her relatives. 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 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 We waited for Sarah to come off between sets. Sick and alone, Holiday pleaded guilty to possession. When Billie was a toddler, her mother moved her to a poor neighborhood in Baltimore and briefly married Billies father, but the union didnt last. Send me updates about Slate special offers. 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. In the movie, a fed orders local cops to shut down her Philly show the second it starts when she defiantly opens with that song. 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. Accuracy and availability may vary. 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. All dope can do for you is kill youand kill you the long slow hard way. The real Anslinger did take an interest in Holiday's case, but in the film, her drug busts are just leverage to make her stop singing that song. When I finished, everybody in the joint was crying in their beer. DUKIC: (As Joe) I've told you a hundred times, people in high places don't like you singing that song. She was previously married to Rev. The singer managed to become a well-known name in the Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. After she and a white friend had car trouble by the beach, Holiday was grateful when a familiar-looking man fixed their car and took them for a drink at a country club. Meeropol later set the poem to music, and the resulting song found its way to Holiday. Bornto teenage parents and named Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, Holiday grew up poor and suffered a rape at just 10 years old by a neighbor, according to Legacy. Cocaine supposedly made Black people almost superhumanly strongNEGRO COCAINE "FIENDS" ARE A NEW SOUTHERN MENACE blared a 1914 New York Times headline. And it can kill the people you love right along with you. Her romantic tastes were equally iconoclastic; allegedly, she had affairs with Charles Laughton, Tallulah Bankhead, and Orson Welles, the finest cat she ever met. When a drunk insulted Holiday, the mystery man decked him. I don't think people know I care about those things. Biographer Farah Jasmine Griffin described Young as Holiday's "creative soulmate.". I want to sing the damn song, all right? The highly anticipated Rare Cask 42.1 Cognac takes centre stage in La Serenissima. The nickname was short for president of the saxophone, according to Donald Clarke's Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon. A brilliant, generous, hard-partying artist, Holiday loved nothing more than the camaraderie of epic jam sessions with peers like Harry James, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington. Who's there for you from the start? "They bust her, and it's pretty clear, I think, from reading the historical documents, that he planted drugs on Billie Holiday that night," Hari told NPR of the raid. She started singing when she was in her early teens and by the time she was 18, record labels were fighting for her. Made an appearance at the 6th annual United States Conference on AIDS at the Anaheim Hilton & Towers in Anaheim, California. But how much of the film is true? "She was the type who would make anyone sympathetic because she was the loving type. It was her first husband, trombonist Jimmy Monroe, who introduced Holiday to Opium in 1941, according to Jazzwise. In a tragically abbreviated singing career that lasted less than three decades, her evocative phrasing and poignant delivery profoundly influenced vocalists who "And I had so many close conversations with her, about so many things," Fletcher had said in a rare interview. In 2001, she sang "America The Beautiful" on the first WWE pay-per-view to be held after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Director Lee Daniels told the Hollywood Reporter that The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday isnt a biopic, and as longtime Canadian journalist Robert Fulford once wrote in the National Post, it is difficult for anyone to attempt to chronicle an authoritative Life of Billie Holiday anyway, because the documents dont exist, and the witnesses have often lied. She continued to play and record music, with much of her money going to support her drug habit and that of her husband. And it seems like their dalliance didn't just exist on-screen. Billie had passed away in 1959 after she was hospitalized due tocirrhosis of the liver. And that may be true. Holiday received her first threat from the bureau in 1939, after performing "Strange Fruit" on the stage in New York. However, Carnegie Halls own website mentions Strange Fruit in the setlist for Holidays March 27, 1948, concert. 'Never Have I Ever' Season 4 Arrives in June. Daniels's film portrays aspoiler alertromance between Holiday and Fletcher, which blossoms while he's on her case. And she kept singing "Strange Fruit" (posted on YouTube). McKay batters Billie so badly that sometimes she has to tape up her ribs before performingnot to mention, he attempts to wrest control of her estate and works with Anslinger to arrest Holiday for her drug use yet again. But none of them would even so much as take his temperature., From this trauma sprang Strange Fruit, Holidays song of personal protest, recounting a lynching in the South. Were masterful, and there werent any parlors around that had one except Alices along with you items you to. Most important song Holiday would ever sing was Strange Fruit '' ( posted on YouTube is jennifer holliday related to billie holiday... Found fame as a singer 's personal magnetism, TX on Wednesday, October 19, (... 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