Movies: Billie Holiday

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday. Her late childhood, stint as a prostitute, early tours, marriages and drug addiction are featured....

The history of New York City's Apollo Theater in Harlem is given the full treatment....

Unscrupulously ambitious, Brutus Jones escapes from jail after killing a guard and, through bluff and bravado, finds himself the emperor of a Caribbean island....

A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others....

For Billie and Nico, life with their father is a roller-coaster ride of playfulness and unease. When he is in the grip of alcohol, tears flow and their apparently idyllic family life collapses. Their mostly absent and irresponsible mother is not much...

‘Lady Day’ was one of the greatest jazz vocalists the world ever heard. In 1971, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday. Before her mysterious death in 1978, Lipnack Kuehl had taped over 200 hours o...

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression....

A star-studded tribute (from the creators of That's Entertainment) to the contributions of Afro-Americans in film over the last century. Vanessa Williams traces the struggles and triumphs of the superstars of music and film. Among the many artists fe...

Short film featuring performances by Frank "Sugar Chile" Robinson, Billie Holiday and Count Basie and his sextet. From the Cinema Apart Collection....

A documentary about the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday (1915-1959). There exist many myths and legends about the Jazz Singer Billie Holiday — one of the greatest voices of the last century. Most of them tell the story of the tragic victim of d...

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A rising nineteen-year-old singer by the name of Billie Holiday made her screen debut in this musical landmark, which features Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing his symphonic jazz piece “A Rhapsody of Negro Life” set to scenes of everyday A...

In 1937, after seeing a photo depicting the lynching of a black man in the south, Bronx-born high school teacher Abel Meeropol wrote a poem entitled "Strange Fruit" that begins with the words: "Southern trees bear a strange fruit / Blood on the leave...

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Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday integrates film and video performances, recordings, words from her controversial autobiography (read by actress Ruby Dee) and interviews with artists who played with her (pianist Mal Waldron, trumpeter Buck ...

This acclaimed documentary depicts the sad life of the greatest of all jazz singers, Billie Holiday, a life engraved with personal tragedy and ultimately shortened by drug abuse and alcoholism. Her story and career are portrayed through rare archival...

The documentary tracks the diva's difficult progress as she emerges from the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of the big bands of the 30s and 40s, to fill nightclubs and saloons across the US in the 50s and early 60s as a force in her own right. Loo...

This film about the life of Billie Holiday is as mesmerising and exquisite as her legendary singing voice, featuring interviews with the legendary jazz singer reveal the story behind her songs....

A string quartet performance of a song that reflects the current times....