Browse: Home / Attention Must Be Paid: Billie Holiday

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here
  • Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

Attention Must Be Paid: Billie Holiday

Posted By Gillianren on February 16, 2019 in Features | 2 Responses

Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.

Actually, there’s no proof that Sarah Fagan ever married Clarence Holiday. And apparently Sarah was nineteen when daughter Eleanora was born. Still, life for the family was not an easy one. Clarence left them to return to his music career. Sarah worked on passenger railroads. Eleanora was left with her mother’s half-sister’s mother-in-law. At age eleven, Eleanora managed to fight off a rapist for long enough for her mother to get home; she spent three months as a ward of the court as a witness. At twelve, she was a servant in a brothel; by fourteen, she was a prostitute. The house was raided, and she spent some time in a workhouse. When she was released, she started singing in Harlem clubs.

There is a lot of tragedy in that story, and that’s only its beginning. She took on the name Billie Holiday. Billie, for silent film star Billie Dove, and her father’s stage name Holiday. She didn’t have the greatest singing voice ever—she could sing one step more than an octave. But my Gods, what she did with that tiny range. She was one of the most iconic voices of the twentieth century, even though she was only active for a few short years of it.

She also, of course, died tragically young. Her excesses caught up with her. In one of her books, Maya Angelou tells of meeting Holiday just before her death, about the decaying wreck of a great voice, the shell of a beautiful woman. She died at 44, all but broke and desperately ill. And under arrest for drug use. She couldn’t even stop drinking after being diagnosed with cirrhosis. She tried to go to the hospital at long last, after losing twenty pounds in a few months, and was arrested in her hospital bed.

I want to talk about the good aspects of her life, but the simple fact is, you almost can’t. Her great song “Strange Fruit” was written by the adoptive parents of the Rosenbergs’ children, and it reminded her of her father’s death after it took him too long to get treatment at a VA hospital because of Jim Crow. (Mustard gas exposure during World War I.) So yeah. Even the highs of her career were marbled in tragedy.

Honestly, we were lucky to have had as much of her as we did. So many children born in her circumstances had so many fewer opportunities than she did. She managed something of her life; in seven years, she made twelve studio albums. She did a small amount of acting, a lot of stage shows. She tried, and her demons took over. What else can you say?

So yeah, um, Patreon and Ko-fi are less depressing, right?

Posted in Features | Tagged Attention Must Be Paid, Billie Holiday, tribute

About the Author

gillianmadeira@hotmail.com'

Gillianren

Gillianren is a forty-something bipolar woman living in the Pacific Northwest after growing up in Los Angeles County. She and her boyfriend have one son and one daughter, and she gave a daughter up for adoption. She fills her days by watching her local library system’s DVD collection in alphabetical order, watching everything that looks interesting. She particularly enjoys pre-Code films, blaxploitation, and live-action Disney movies of the ’60s and ’70s. She has a Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/gillianren

Related Posts

Life is a mysteryCelebrating the Living: Madonna→

Clearly Pryor knew a thing or two about wooing womenAttention Must Be Paid: Richard Pryor→

Definitely how most people picture him.Celebrating the Living: John Cameron Mitchell→

A sexy hot mess bigot!Attention Must Be Paid: Patricia Highsmith→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    38536 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    31158 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    30554 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    27733 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    23654 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The truth is FAR out there.

    The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here

    December 6, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • This is a way lower res image than I will be allowed to get away with at the new site.

    Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer

    December 5, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE

    December 4, 2024 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    December 3, 2024 / Greta Taylor
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

    December 2, 2024 / The Ploughman

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!