50 Fun Facts About Billie Holiday

What was Billie Holiday's birth name?

She took 'Billie' from the actress Billie Dove and 'Holiday' from her father, guitarist Clarence Halliday.

In which city was Billie Holiday born in 1915?

Her teenage mother had been thrown out of the family home in Baltimore for becoming pregnant; Billie grew up in Baltimore.

Which musician gave Holiday the nickname 'Lady Day'?

She called the tenor saxophonist 'Prez'; he had once been a boarder in her mother's house.

From which actress did the young singer borrow her stage first name?

Her surname came from her father Clarence Halliday, a jazz banjo player and guitarist who abandoned the family.

Which producer first heard Holiday in a Harlem club in early 1933 and arranged her recording debut?

He called her 'the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius'.

With which bandleader did the 18-year-old Holiday make her recording debut in November 1933?

'Riffin' the Scotch' sold 5,000 copies and became her first hit; 'Your Mother's Son-In-Law' sold 300.

Holiday's 1935 collaboration with which pianist produced the standard 'What a Little Moonlight Can Do'?

The Brunswick sessions were aimed at the jukebox trade and paid her a flat fee rather than royalties.

In which 1935 Duke Ellington short film did Holiday appear as a woman abused by her lover?

She sang 'Saddest Tale' in her scene.

Which of these was a 1936 hit for Holiday, taken from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess?

Artie Shaw played clarinet on the July 1936 session that produced it alongside 'Billie's Blues'.

Which white bandleader did Billie Holiday join after Count Basie fired her in 1938?

Shaw was pressured to add a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday had to share the bandstand.

'Strange Fruit' began as a poem written by which Bronx schoolteacher under the pen name Lewis Allan?

He later adopted the orphaned sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Meeropol's poem was inspired by Lawrence Beitler's photograph of a 1930 lynching in which state?

He first published it as 'Bitter Fruit' in a teachers' union magazine in 1937.

At which integrated Greenwich Village nightclub did Billie Holiday first perform 'Strange Fruit'?

Owner Barney Josephson introduced her to the song; she said 'I opened Cafe Society as an unknown'.

Because Columbia found 'Strange Fruit' too sensitive, which label recorded it on 20 April 1939?

Milt Gabler's label got no airplay for it, but the disc sold a million; Holiday called it her biggest seller.

What was on the flip side of the 'Strange Fruit' single, a jukebox hit credited with much of its sales?

She later performed the same song with Lester Young on TV's The Sound of Jazz.

Holiday said singing 'Strange Fruit' reminded her of how her father died. What happened to him?

'Twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South,' she wrote.

'God Bless the Child', Holiday's most covered record, grew out of an argument with whom?

Her mother refused her money; she stormed out with the phrase that became the title and wrote the song with Arthur Herzog Jr.

Under what pseudonym did Billie Holiday record 'Trav'lin' Light' with Paul Whiteman in 1942?

'The Duchess' was actually her mother Sadie's nickname.

Holiday's first Decca recording in 1944, and one of her biggest hits, was which song?

She walked out of the first session on seeing the string section, then embraced strings, an arrangement style associated with Sinatra and Fitzgerald.

Holiday wrote 'Don't Explain' after catching her husband Jimmy Monroe with what?

She recorded it for Decca in November 1944 and again in 1945 with softened lyrics.

Holiday's only major film role was in New Orleans (1947), opposite which trumpeter?

Racism and McCarthyism led producers to trim both stars' parts so the film would not suggest Black people created jazz.

After her 1947 narcotics conviction, Holiday served her sentence at which federal prison camp?

She was released early for good behaviour on 16 March 1948.

What did the drug conviction cost Holiday, barring her from clubs that served alcohol?

Thereafter she had to work in concert halls and theatres.

Eleven days after leaving prison, Holiday sold out which venue, with a record 2,700 advance tickets?

Someone sent gardenias; she pinned them on and stuck the hidden hatpin into her head without noticing.

What flower became Holiday's trademark, worn in her hair on stage?

At Carnegie Hall in 1956 she stepped into the spotlight in a white gown with white gardenias in her black hair.

Which head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is alleged to have targeted Holiday from 1939 onward?

The claim that she was pursued specifically for singing 'Strange Fruit' originated in Johann Hari's 2015 book Chasing the Scream.

Holiday's 1956 autobiography Lady Sings the Blues was ghostwritten by whom?

Scholar John Szwed argues it is broadly accurate but was watered down under threat of legal action; his son Bevan was her godchild.

Holiday's 1958 Columbia album Lady in Satin featured a 40-piece orchestra arranged and conducted by whom?

Ellis also backed her final 1959 sessions for MGM; Columbia gave the album an unlimited budget.

On which 1957 CBS broadcast did Holiday sing a jukebox hit of hers in a famous final reunion with Prez?

The Seven Lively Arts special aired live on 8 December 1957 with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Gerry Mulligan.

What did Holiday reportedly say after Prez's funeral in March 1959?

She died four months later, on 17 July 1959, aged 44.

What happened to Holiday in her hospital bed at Metropolitan Hospital shortly before she died?

Narcotics police claimed to have found heroin in her room and placed her under police guard.

Holiday died of cirrhosis and heart failure in July 1959 with how much money in the bank?

Her husband Louis McKay, a mob enforcer, had progressively swindled her out of her earnings.

Whom did Holiday marry in March 1957?

He was a mob enforcer; her first husband, trombonist Jimmy Monroe, she had wed in 1941.

How many Grammy Awards did Holiday win, all posthumously?

All were for Best Historical Album; she entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence in 2000.

Who earned an Oscar nomination for her debut as Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues (1972)?

Motown Productions made the film; Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor co-starred.

Who won a Golden Globe for playing Holiday in the 2021 film The United States vs. Billie Holiday?

Lee Daniels directed; the film was released on Hulu after Paramount sold it during the pandemic.

In which year was Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' added to the National Recording Registry?

It had entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978.

Which of Holiday's 1944 recordings for Milt Gabler's label entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005?

She re-recorded several of her 1930s Teddy Wilson songs for the label that year.

Which fellow singer named 'You Better Go Now' as her favourite Holiday recording?

Holiday had found herself in direct competition with Fitzgerald during her Basie years.

Where did Rolling Stone rank Holiday on its 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time?

NPR also named her one of its 50 Great Voices; the Rock Hall says she 'changed jazz forever'.

A statue of Holiday was erected in 1985 in which city?

Panels inspired by 'Strange Fruit' were added in 1993; the US Postal Service put her on a stamp in 1994.

Which crooner said every major pop singer of Billie Holiday's generation had been 'touched by her genius'?

He told Ebony magazine so in 1958; he reportedly visited her deathbed the following year.

In which city did Holiday grow up, attending Saint Frances Academy and a Catholic reform school?

She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd at nine for skipping classes; a statue of her was erected in the city in 1985.

Which Motown-produced film about Holiday was nominated for five Academy Awards?

Its soundtrack of Diana Ross singing Holiday songs reached number one on the Billboard album chart in 1973.

Holiday's rival with the Chick Webb Band in the late 1930s, who later became a friend, was whom?

The Basie and Webb bands were direct competitors while Holiday sang for Basie in 1937 and early 1938.

Holiday was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 in which category?

She also holds places in the Grammy Hall of Fame, the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame.

Holiday's four posthumous Grammy Awards were all in which category?

In her lifetime her main honours were Esquire magazine awards; she was voted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1961.

Holiday's first European tour in 1954 opened in which city?

Swedish impresario Nils Hellstrom organised the 'Jazz Club U.S.A.' package, named after Leonard Feather's radio show.

Which 1949 recording was her most successful Decca release after 'Lover Man'?

Producer Milt Gabler said so; 1940s charts only listed the top 30, so exact rankings for many of her records are unknown.

The 2021 film The United States vs. Billie Holiday was based on which book by Johann Hari?

Director Lee Daniels wanted to present Holiday as a civil-rights leader rather than the tragic figure of the 1972 biopic.