Q 01/05
A) Sarah Julia Harris
B) Billie Dove
C) Eleanora Fagan
D) Ella Jane Fitzgerald
Answer · why
She took 'Billie' from the actress Billie Dove and 'Holiday' from her father, guitarist Clarence Halliday.
Q 02/05
A) Baltimore
B) New York
C) Philadelphia
D) Washington, D.C.
Answer · why
Her teenage mother had been thrown out of the family home in Baltimore for becoming pregnant; Billie grew up in Baltimore.
Q 03/05
A) Lester Young
B) Count Basie
C) Duke Ellington
D) Louis Armstrong
Answer · why
She called the tenor saxophonist 'Prez'; he had once been a boarder in her mother's house.
Q 04/05
A) Billie Burke
B) Billie Dove
C) Billie Bird
D) Billie Whitelaw
Answer · why
Her surname came from her father Clarence Halliday, a jazz banjo player and guitarist who abandoned the family.
Q 05/05
A) Norman Granz
B) John Hammond
C) Milt Gabler
D) Ahmet Ertegun
Answer · why
He called her 'the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius'.
Play the full Billie Holiday Trivia quiz — scored, streaked, and passable to a friend.