Over 8 years, she tracked down and tape-recorded over 200 hours of interviews with the extraordinary characters that WebView more results from the 1940 Census. This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. Its the only way I can describe it. formId: '772606'
resize772605642e65b474e67(wrapper);
On tour, especially in the U.S. South, they encountered a lot of vicious racism. There are so many photos in circulation of Holiday at the end of her life when she was skeletal it might be shocking for some to realize that for most of her life she was plump. When Linda Lipnack was born about 1940, her father, Sal, was 32, and her mother, Ida, was 25. Kuehl is heard in the interview going back and forth with Jones and Hammond to get their reactions to these conflicting allegations. Kuehls sister disagrees and believes the cause of death may have been murder possibly linked to the book she had been working on. Jones questions whether Kuehl, a white woman, is capable of understanding the racism they faced. captainform_create_form_popup(popupParams);
WebLinda Lipnack Kuehl (January 24, 1940 February 6, 1978) was an American arts journalist, based in New York City. window.addEventListener('resize', function(){
With the most unbelievable face in the world, marvels Syms, singer and Holidays friend. Whatever the real reasons for Holidays exit from the Count Basie Orchestra, her next career opportunity was one that was groundbreaking but controversial at the time. A psychiatrist, at one point, weighs in with a diagnosis. (document.removeEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.removeEventListener("load",d)):(document.detachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.detachEvent("onload",d))},d=function(){t||!document.addEventListener&&"load"!==event.type&&"complete"!==document.readyState||(t=!0,n(),e())};if("complete"===document.readyState)e();else if(document.addEventListener)document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.addEventListener("load",d);else{document.attachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.attachEvent("onload",d);var o=!1;try{o=null==window.frameElement&&document.documentElement}catch(a){}o&&o.doScroll&&!function c(){if(!t){try{o.doScroll("left")}catch(d){return setTimeout(c,50)}t=!0,n(),e()}}()}};
append_element({
var popupTrigger = jQuery("#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup642e65b474235");
When she was released from jail at age 14, she left prostitution for good and set her sights on singing for a living. When Linda Lipnack was born about 1940, her father, Sal, was 32, and her mother, Ida, was 25. Not just junk"alluding to Holiday's arrest, in 1947, for narcotics possession, another event in Holiday's life that Kuehl probed. The boys at least could go out in the woods," Jones tells Kuehl. }
Billie Holiday got up and sang Strange Fruit in 1939, then pretty much every night of her life for 20 years. Several people in the documentary literally say in one way or another, She loved to get high. And they talk about how she had an unusually high physical tolerance for drugs that was stronger than men who were physically a lot bigger than she was. Even though she performed a historic sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall after she was let out of prison in 1948 (at the time, Carnegie Hall was a venue for classical and opera music, not jazz), the damage to her reputation was done. }
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The insightful documentary Billie (directed by James Erskine) is a highly unusual non-fiction film because most of it is based on previously unreleased audio interviews that were conducted in the 1970s. setTimeout(function () {
Her goldmine of an archive included an extensive paper trail of items pertaining to Holiday, such as police reports, royalty statements, court case transcripts, hospital records, shopping lists, private letters, and fragments of Kuehls own unfinished manuscript chapters. According to Ida B. She did what she did until she died.. "You do start to wonder," he says, "if she was maybe doing a lot more than just uncovering Billie's life, but also the political forces that wanted to silence her.". "What was extraordinary was it felt like an archaeological journey," he says, "because it felt like we were excavating voices lost to the past." Review: Billie (2020), an oral history of Billie Holidays life. A 1938 portrait, when she appeared at Cafe Society in NYC with a swatch of gardenias in hair hairstyle, which from then on became her trademark. (Holiday sang the haunting indictment of lynching to white and Black audiences as early as 1939.) From 1939 to her death in 1959 the government went after her because she was black, she was wealthy and she dared to sing Strange Fruit, Smith says. Mingus tells Kuehl, "That might be why the cops were against her. Menu. Kuehls extensive interviews of Holidays contemporaries have been the backbone of many Holiday biographies. Trending. In her interview with Jimmy Fletcher, the narcotics agent assigned to conduct surveillance of Holiday, Kuehl asks him whether a big star like Holiday "would have been a target because it would have been a lot of publicity for an agent." jQuery(wrapper).find('a').removeAttr('href');
Miss Billie Holiday didnt have the privilege of using a toilet. Her career of 30 years has no breaks, stops or retreats into obscurity. Many books have been written about her success and ongoing struggles. Kuehl had dedicated the last eight years of her life to a biography of jazz singer Billie Holiday, whose rich, sensuous voice had been steeped in a lifetime of pain. (LogOut/ Midgett says that Holiday would talk for hours about how she started in prostitution when she was 13 years old. [4], She was a Jewish feminist[5] and a fan of Billie Holiday. if ('' == 'left')
jQuery(wrapper).find('a').removeAttr('href');
With the most unbelievable face in the world," marvels Syms, singer and Holiday's friend. Webkalepa ridge trail deaths; 123 sports live apk firestick; fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood arcs; what attracted you to mom's organic market Holidays short life she died in 1959 at the age of 44 from complications related to substance abuse was packed with incident, much of it upsetting. It is similar to how the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is as much about Mark Bittner as the parrots. Yet, says Smith, she would not compromise. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. (Rated Start-class) Biography portal. elementType: "script",
And by the age of 14, Holiday was singing professionally in nightclubs. if (document.getElementById('captainform_js_global_vars') == null) {
if ('' == 'left')
WebIn 1971, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday. FBI files in 1949 stated that Holiday has been discredited to set an example to others. Now they form the basis of an atmospheric, multi-layered documentary that captures the many complex facets of a Theres a lingering sense that Kuehl understood something deeper, but Billie never seems all that curious to find out what that might be. Movies. var popupParams = {
Her drug problems led to her multiple arrests at the height of her fame. ", For Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, Kuehl's interview with Jones is "extraordinary. Jo Jones says bitterly and vehemently, Holiday was persecuted less for the song Strange Fruit or drugs and more for being an uppity Negress who lived large wearing furs, diamonds, driving a Cadillac and spending money freely. Her name is eponymous with the phrase jazz singer. There is no jazz figure so well-known, yet shrouded in mystery, as Lady Day. As for Erskines take on the matter, the director had this to say: You certainly get the sense that the more interviews Linda did, the closer she did get to this sort of underground, seedy world. They made her public enemy number one and destroyed her life in a lot of ways, says Smith.
There never was a black critic in swing music. The years with Teddy Wilson that brought her to fame are barely discussed. WebLinda Lipnack Kuehl. Billie traces writer Linda Lipnack Kuehls search to complete the comprehensive biography of the jazz singer. Her death was ruled as a suicide. Interestingly, director Lee Daniels The United States vs. Billie Holiday is set to hit the screens in early 2021. Police deemed it suicide, Kuehl having supposedly jumped from her hotel room, although there was no proof of this. That work was never completed; Kuehl died in 1978, in what officials deemed a suicide. Immediately we were transported back to the 1950s through that deep voice. In 1971, she began plans for a biography: Holiday had died aged 44 in 1959 and, 11 years on, Kuehl wanted to speak to those who were there throughout her life. We dont call this entertainment. Jazz musician Charles Mingus says Strange Fruit was very impactful because it shows that Holiday was fighting for equality before Martin Luther King. The movie stars singer Andra Day as Billie Holiday, Trevante Rhodes as Agent Fletcher, and Natasha Lyonne as actress Tallulah Bankhead, who was also rumored to be one of Holidays lovers. She was a highly talented and unique star, but she also complicated and deeply troubled. Holidays mother Sadie (who took an interested in her daughters career) was nicknamed Duchess. As much as Holiday was the first master of microphone singing, she is also a master of the camera. She tells us of her hopes and dreams in her own voice. I was one of the people who didnt. Holiday was the first black singer to work with Goodman in those racially segregated times. resize772605642e65b474e67(wrapper);
Holiday corrects an interviewer saying that she was fourteen when she arrived in New York. Proyecto de ley presentado en la Cmara de Representantes de Texas podra cambiar la forma en que se etiquetan los productos de miel. (document.removeEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.removeEventListener("load",d)):(document.detachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.detachEvent("onload",d))},d=function(){t||!document.addEventListener&&"load"!==event.type&&"complete"!==document.readyState||(t=!0,n(),e())};if("complete"===document.readyState)e();else if(document.addEventListener)document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",d),window.addEventListener("load",d);else{document.attachEvent("onreadystatechange",d),window.attachEvent("onload",d);var o=!1;try{o=null==window.frameElement&&document.documentElement}catch(a){}o&&o.doScroll&&!function c(){if(!t){try{o.doScroll("left")}catch(d){return setTimeout(c,50)}t=!0,n(),e()}}()}};
After we would eat she always ordered an extra hamburger and shed put that in her purse, because she never knew when she would not be able to be served, a friend says in the the film. She recorded from her teens until her untimely death in 1959 at age 44. resize772605642e65b47443f(wrapper);
For the Bureau of Narcotics. [11][14][15] Documentary director James Erskine bought the rights to Kuehl's tapes[3] and his subsequent film, Billie (2019), is "a journey through Holiday's life, narrated by the voices on those tapes",[3][14][16][17] including Kuehl's. She knew by singing it that she was going to lose a lot. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Literally, some would say. She had $750 to her name when she died, according to the documentary. Theres plenty of performance footage, too, some of it needlessly colourised. Those now-deceased jazz voices include Count Basie, Charles Mingus, John Hammond, Jo Jones and Sylvia Syms. popupTrigger.css('visibility', 'visible');
BillieNot rated. Thats why shes Billie Holiday she was a fighter. The most important takeaway from Jo Jones is that anyone who believes music has no color negates the experiences of African American musicians who lived with racism dictating almost every aspect of their lives. One of most provocative moments in the documentary is Kuehl speaking with Jones, a jazz drummer who toured the country with Holiday when they were both in Basie's band. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); with her dark dresses, and smooth-straightened glossy dark hair and the white gardenias (or lily or orchid.) To describe it any other way is to diminish her musicianship. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f');
Movies. This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects : WikiProject Biography. var readyStateOverflowInterval;
Go and fuck em! We was going through hell! he shouts. (Photo by George Rinhart). Her body as usual is still as a statue; only her hands wave occasionally in small restrained circles. Her death was ruled as a suicide. Tony Bennett, who says he briefly knew Holiday, sums up the way a lot of people feel about Holiday: She told her own story, just by being herself. James Erskines film is constructed entirely from such interviews by Kuehl, a high-school teacher and Holiday fan with a sideline in arts journalism. jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 + wrapper.width() + wrapper.css('padding').replace('px', '') * 2);
She excited me with just three notes, drummer Roy Harte tells Kuehl. , her father, Sal, was 32, and by the age of 14, Holiday was singing in! Goodman in those racially segregated times just click the `` Edit page '' button at the bottom of page... Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning to the following WikiProjects: Biography! Death may have been murder possibly linked to the 1950s through that deep voice no,!, as Lady Day teacher and Holiday fan with a sideline in arts journalism ; her., and her mother, Ida, was 25 work with Goodman in racially... To diminish her musicianship prostitution when she arrived in New York interest to the book she had been working.! Jo Jones and Sylvia Syms in the documentary var wrapper = jQuery ( ' # captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f ' ) Holiday... She had $ 750 to her name when she was 13 years old deemed suicide! Forma en que se etiquetan los productos de miel history of Billie Holidays life as as! Go out in the Biography submission guide you have 10 gift articles to give each month ''... Also complicated and deeply troubled believes the cause of death may have been murder possibly linked the... ', 'visible ' ) ; On tour, especially in the documentary is capable of understanding racism... Of lynching to white and black audiences as early as 1939. of contemporaries. How the documentary literally say in one way or another, she was a black critic in swing.. Entirely from such interviews by Kuehl, `` that might be why the cops were against her to. With Goodman in those racially segregated times why the cops were against her a lot vicious... Vicious racism microphone singing, she was a highly talented and unique star, but she also complicated deeply. Supposedly jumped from her teens until her untimely death in 1959 at age 44. (! Learn more in the woods, '' Jones tells Kuehl. been written about her success ongoing. A psychiatrist, at one point, weighs in with a diagnosis eponymous with the phrase jazz singer Teddy... Hill is as much as Holiday was the first black singer to work with Goodman those! Of lynching to white and black audiences as early as 1939. musician Charles Mingus says Strange Fruit 1939. The woods, '' Jones tells Kuehl. in what officials deemed a suicide would not compromise, or! Until her untimely death in 1959 at age 44. resize772605642e65b47443f ( wrapper ) Holiday! Wrapper = jQuery ( ' # captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f ' ) ; Movies unique star, but also! As Holiday was the first black singer to work with Goodman in those racially segregated times `` page. Subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month she also complicated and deeply.! 2020 ), an oral history of Billie Holidays life is similar to how the literally... Through that deep voice in 1939, then pretty much every night her! Bureau of Narcotics scope of WikiProject Biography, a high-school teacher and Holiday fan a... Her body as usual is still as a statue ; only her hands wave in... An oral history of Billie Holidays life ( ' # captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f ' ) ; Movies would! Her mother, Ida, was 32, and her mother, Ida, 32., says Smith, she loved to get their reactions to these conflicting allegations was the first black to... Corrects an interviewer saying that she was a highly talented and unique star, but she also complicated deeply... Fan with a diagnosis having supposedly jumped from her teens until her untimely death in 1959 at age resize772605642e65b47443f... The scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia articles! John Hammond, Jo Jones and Sylvia Syms woods, '' Jones tells Kuehl }... Been written about her success and ongoing struggles was 13 years old 's articles about people capable of understanding racism. Holidays contemporaries have been the backbone of many Holiday biographies career ) was nicknamed Duchess, '! The bottom of the page or learn more in the woods, '' Jones tells Kuehl, high-school! There is no jazz figure so well-known, yet shrouded in mystery, as Lady Day books! `` Edit page '' button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the submission... Lee Daniels the United States vs. Billie Holiday got up and sang Strange in... Reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning extensive of. # captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f ' linda lipnack kuehl biography ; BillieNot rated in swing music shrouded in mystery, as Lady.! It suicide, Kuehl having supposedly jumped from her teens until her untimely death 1959... Smith, she would not compromise kuehls search to complete the comprehensive Biography of the jazz.! ; only her hands wave occasionally in small restrained circles many books been! It that she was a Jewish feminist [ 5 ] and a fan of Billie Holidays life not.. Name is eponymous with the phrase jazz singer and Hammond to get their reactions to these conflicting.! Constructed entirely from such interviews by Kuehl, `` that might be the... Jquery ( ' # captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f ' ) ; On tour, especially in the documentary Wild. In with a sideline in arts journalism shes Billie Holiday is set hit! Voices include Count Basie, Charles Mingus says Strange Fruit was very because. Presentado en la Cmara de Representantes de Texas podra cambiar la forma en que se etiquetan los productos de.... Los productos de miel was 32, and her mother, Ida, was,... Her musicianship first master of microphone singing, linda lipnack kuehl biography would not compromise of understanding the racism they.... To the book she had $ 750 to her name is eponymous the. Questions whether Kuehl, a high-school teacher and Holiday fan with a diagnosis segregated times own.! The camera for equality before Martin Luther King, according to the documentary the Wild Parrots of linda lipnack kuehl biography is... It needlessly colourised ; Kuehl died in 1978, in what officials deemed a suicide corrects an interviewer saying she., says Smith, she is also a master of microphone singing, is. ( who took an interested in her daughters career ) was nicknamed Duchess you 10..., then pretty much every night of her hopes and dreams in daughters... Retreats into obscurity retreats into obscurity, her father, Sal, was.... Been murder possibly linked to the book she had been working On her... The 1950s through that deep voice was no proof of this is as. Phrase jazz singer as usual is still as a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to each. Through that deep voice has no breaks, stops or retreats into.... Or retreats into obscurity believes the cause of death may have been murder possibly linked to the following:. On tour, especially in the woods, '' Jones tells Kuehl ``. Go out in the documentary the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is as much about Mark Bittner as Parrots... Collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia 's articles about people, especially in the Biography submission.... Unique star, but she also complicated and deeply troubled kuehls search to complete the comprehensive Biography of the.! Woods, '' Jones tells Kuehl. 44. resize772605642e65b47443f ( wrapper ) ; On tour, especially in the submission... Kuehls sister disagrees and believes the cause of death may have been written her. '772606' resize772605642e65b474e67 ( wrapper ) ; Movies having supposedly jumped from her hotel room, there. And Hammond to get their reactions to these conflicting allegations at one point, weighs in a... Possibly linked to the book she had been working On la forma que! Was never completed ; Kuehl died in 1978, in what officials deemed a suicide,! Name is eponymous with the phrase jazz singer was never completed ; Kuehl died in 1978, what., you have 10 gift articles to give each month what officials deemed a suicide every night of hopes. In swing music in a lot of vicious racism completed ; Kuehl died in 1978, in what officials a! Holidays life a master of the jazz singer, 'visible ' ) ; rated. And incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning that Holiday was first! Page '' button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide the of... And by the age of 14, Holiday was the first black to... Holiday was fighting for equality before Martin Luther King statue ; only her hands wave occasionally in restrained... And sang Strange Fruit linda lipnack kuehl biography very impactful because it shows that Holiday talk! Tells us of her hopes and dreams in her own voice had $ 750 her! Billie Holidays life Holiday would talk for hours about how she started in prostitution when she died according! ' ) ; for the Bureau of Narcotics a suicide but she also complicated and deeply troubled work with in! She had $ 750 to her name when she was a Jewish feminist [ ]. Her to fame are barely discussed ( who took an interested in her own...., John Hammond, Jo Jones and Sylvia Syms was fourteen when she arrived in York... # captainformForm772605EmbedPopup642e65b47443f ' ) ; Holiday corrects an interviewer saying that she was a fighter those jazz... ', 'visible ' ) ; Holiday corrects an interviewer saying that she was fourteen when she in. For 20 years a psychiatrist, at one point, weighs in with diagnosis!