![]() ![]() For example, while touring through the Jim Crow South with an all-white band, Holiday sees a lynched man, and this scene merges into a brief performance of the song “Strange Fruit.” In another scene, the tour bus is actually attacked by a Klu Klux Klan rally. The film hints at the racism of the 1930s-1950s when Holiday performed and attempts to link the torment of these experiences to her drug addiction. The music is an excellent combination of Diana Ross as herself, not exactly imitating Billie Holiday, but incorporating some of her techniques to make Holiday’s songs recognizable. Ross does an admirable job at portraying Holiday’s emotional swings, her heroin addiction, and her affair with Louis McKay (standing in for all three of Holiday’s real husbands, played by Billy Dee Williams). Timelines and places are vague, multiple people are combined into fewer and fictionalized characters, but essence is there, making for a compelling film. Starting with Holiday thrown in prison on drug charges and flashing back to a childhood filled with rape and prostitution, there’s no sugar-coating Holiday’s life story, even if the events depicted in this movie are only a rough outline of the way it happened. Take legendary Motown diva Diana Ross and let her portray legendary jazz diva Billie Holiday, and well, of course, you’ll get an iconic ‘behind the music’ style biopic that is Lady Sings the Blues (1972). ![]()
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