Lady Sings the Blues

10/12/19722h 24m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ Diana Ross is Billie Holiday. Diana Ross sings Billie Holiday. And a superstar is born. ~

Overview:

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.

Director:

Sidney J. Furie

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$2,000,000.00

Revenue:

$19,726,490.00

Key words:

new york city
brothel
jazz singer or musician
mental breakdown
biography
addiction
rape victim
tour bus
racism
based on memoir or autobiography
period drama
drug overdose
music history
lynching
dying young
black singer
withdrawal
heroin addict
nightclub singer
blues music
billie holiday
harlem, new york city
carnegie hall
rise to fame
wayward girl
death of a musician
music tour
1940s
somber
1930s
following one's dream
desperate
former prostitute
period film
straight jacket
cautionary
black woman
cultural icon
woman's story
disheartening
powerful
woman musician
deep south racism
kkk rally

Cast

Diana Ross

~ as ~

Billie Holiday

Billy Dee Williams

~ as ~

Louis McKay

Richard Pryor

~ as ~

Piano Man

James T. Callahan

~ as ~

Reg Hanley

Paul Hampton

~ as ~

Harry

Sid Melton

~ as ~

Jerry

Virginia Capers

~ as ~

Mama Holiday

Yvonne Fair

~ as ~

Yvonne

Isabel Sanford

~ as ~

The Madame

Tracee Lyles

~ as ~

The Prostitute

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

CinemaSerf
Written 3 hour(s) ago
7
I’ve never really be an huge fan of Diana Ross’s voice, but there’s no getting away from her personable and visceral performance here as the flawed jazz musician Billie Holliday. With Motown’s Berry Gordy at the helm it was always going to lead on the music and it does that effectively too for the most part whilst giving us the basic bones of her turbulent battle with narcotics. We start in that position so often inhabited by aspirational young black Americans, a poverty stricken environment where sex was all too often the way young women made a living, before she gets that lucky break in a Harlem nightclub. That introduces her to Louis McKay (Billy Dee Williams) who takes up the management of her career. Unlike with many of her contemporaries, though, he is genuinely interested in his protégée and tries to keep her on the rails as her success exposes her to bigotry and heroin. Gradually the headlines begin to turn against her, the pressures increase and her talent alone can no longer save her from this very sad, but predicable, path of self-destruction. Ross, helped often by some quite powerful make-up effects, is entirely convincing right through the stages of Holliday’s rise and fall, and Williams as well as an authentic looking production design also manages to evoke some of the trials and tribulations faced by an African American woman in a very much white man’s world. As you’d expect, the soundtrack reminds us of some of the gorgeous songs like “God Bless the Child” and the title song that made her famous. It’s a bit speculative when it comes to the private life of this woman, and can be a bit heavy weather towards the disappointingly rushed conclusion, but it’s still a classy production that largely steers clear of being adulatory.