Over 8 years, she tracked down and tape-recorded over 200 hours of interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer's short, tumultuous life. popupTrigger.click(function(){ The biopic will follow Holiday's life through the eyes of Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who as a fan and literary journalist in 1970 began a biography of Holiday. id: "captainform_js_global_vars", She created Freedoms Song: Music of the Civil Rights Movement and was musical director and curator for the Martin Luther King Institutes Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Linda Lipnack Kuehl - Biography - IMDb Edit Linda Lipnack Kuehl Biography It looks like we don't have any Biography for Linda Lipnack Kuehl yet. Cafe Society owner Barney Josephson says that it wasnt unusual for white customers to walk out of the club and complain if Holiday performed the song. Greenwich Entertainment released Billie in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 4, 2020. var captainformCustomVars = {}; if(typeof cfJsHost != 'undefined'){ It is maintained is rich with photos, videos, book information, quotes, and, of course, music.Plan to spend some time there. Her scholarly papers on Billie Holiday include: Two Gardenias for Civil Rights: Robin Carsons photo of Billie Holiday (read it here), This Bitter Earth: Infertility for Billie, Ella and Sarah. Presentations and performance on Billie Holiday include: Rethinking Billie Holiday on her Centennial (Google Talk), Blues Legacies and Black Feminism with Angela Davis (SFJAZZ), Your email address will not be published. After moving to Harlem, she started singing in the local nightclubs, where she was eventually discovered by producer John Hammond. }); Maria Bryant, a singer and friend of Holidays, calls Levy a dirty, rotten, stinking bastard., In 1945, Holiday moved on to Louis McKay, who would become her manager and then her second husband. captainformThemeStyle['772605'] = ''; A psychiatrist, at one point, weighs in with a diagnosis. Various biographies on Holiday have drawn upon Kuehl's material. The journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl worked for years on a Billie Holiday biography before Kuehl's sudden death in 1978. On 6 February 1978, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl fell from the balcony of a Washington DC hotel. 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. She wanted to have sex, mostly with women. Having a camera in ones face automatically creates artifice or at least a self-consciousness that is less present in an audio-only interview, especially one conducted after ones concert, over a drink. Her archive passed to a private collector and was later used in other writers' biographies of Holiday. Oddly enough, the just-released documentary Billie is an intertwining tragic tale of two women. captainformThemeStyle['772605'] = ''; Billie stands in magnificent glory in a dark long-sleeved dress with a portrait collar that shows off her face. ("elementType"in e))return!1;var n=null;if(n=e.following?e.following.parentElement:e.inside?e.inside:e.replacing?e.replacing.parentElement:"script"==e.elementType?document.head:document.body,null==n)return!1;var l=document.createElement(e.elementType);delete e.elementType,l=jQuery.extend(l,e),e.replacing?n.replaceChild(l,e.replacing):n.appendChild(l)}; He reportedly ripped her off. Watching the footage of her face singing with no sound could reduce the watcher to tears alone without hearing a single note. In the late 60s, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Holiday's life, interviewing everyone from jazz greats such as Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett and. In a 1971 interview, Ruby Davis, who was Holidays roommate before the singer was famous, says that Holidays nickname was Mr. Billie Holiday because she was seldom seen with fellas Her mother put it in her mind to be careful [of men] because theyll always break your heart, just like Billies father., Harry Sweets Edison, a trumpeter in the Count Basie Orchestra comments on Holiday: She was like a man, but feminine. John Simmons, who was her bass player and lover, calls her a sex machine. Music conductor Ray Ellis also comments on Holidays sex appeal: I was in love with Billie, not necessarily Billie, but somebody. if(typeof cfJsHost != 'undefined'){ var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup63c877fb834ac'); Before her mysterious death in 1978, Lipnack Kuehl had taped over 200 hours of interviews. Lipstick and brow pencil are the hallmark features. var readyStateOverflowInterval; [3], Interviews that Kuehl conducted with writers were published in The Paris Review in 1972 and 1978. Kuehl died after attending a Basie concert in Washington, D.C. Luftman says that a big clue for her that it wasnt a suicide was that Kuehl had a cosmetic face mask on, which was her habit when she got ready for bed. popupTrigger.css('visibility', 'visible'); type: "text/javascript", Over 8 years, she tracked down and tape-recorded over 200 hours of interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer's short, tumultuous life. She was a generous person, Id say, in thought anyway. Before her mysterious death in 1978, Lipnack Kuehl had taped over 200 hours of interviews. setTimeout(function () { jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 + wrapper.width() + wrapper.css('padding').replace('px', '') * 2); Read jazz pianist Richard Fregulias review of Billie. Before completing her work, Kuehl died suddenly in February 1978. 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. Protest songs became more prevalent in the 1960s, but Holiday was a pioneer. popupTrigger.css('visibility', 'visible'); captainform_create_form_popup(popupParams); Kuehl conducted over 150 interviews in the early 1970s, less than two decades after Holidays death in 1959, so the memories of Holiday are still fresh and free from todays prejudices. }; Function: require_once. resize77260663c877fb834ac(wrapper); Sarah Julia Sadie Fagan (a maid) was 13 when she gave birth to Eleanora, and Clarence Halliday (a musician) was 15. Kuehl died by suicide in 1978, though her sister appears in the documentary and asserts that she believes her sister was murdered. Detroit Red, a dancer work worked with Holiday at The Hot Cha, remembers: At that particular time, the only vice she had was smoking [marijuana] reefers. Later, Holiday became an alcoholic and addicted to cocaine and heroin. Nalleys Ballads for Billie is now available on CD or as a digital album. var popupTrigger = jQuery("#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup63c877fb829bf"); As a woman, Kuehl seems to instinctively know that Holidays last husband, Louis McKay (Holiday filed for divorce but it was not completed before she died), who owned the rights to Billies estate after her death was an unreliable hustler who was prone to say anything to interviewers as long as he was paid for the interview. She wanted to sing. Holiday can only be fairly described as oscillating from pleasingly plump to svelte for much of her career. Culture Mix Survey As much as Holiday was the first master of microphone singing, she is also a master of the camera. She recorded from her teens until her untimely death in 1959 at age 44. (Courtesy of the Kuehl family) Kuehl left behind a trove of notes, transcripts and some 200 hours of interviews on cassette tapesmostly in shoeboxes, some labeled, some not. (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()}}()}}; function resize77260563c877fb82c45(wrapper){ They loved it. Several people in the documentary describe Holiday as a masochist who never knew what it was like to have a healthy love relationship when she was adult. Function: _error_handler, File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/page/index.php She wanted to retire and care for orphans. Calling Holiday a chick singer is an understatement, but it is relevant that we understand how the world saw Holiday during her time and how she saw herself. She wasnt like a slut. That Holiday took the bottom of the barrel Tin Pan Alley tunes that no one wanted to record and made them works of art is never covered. if ('' == 'left') Her name is eponymous with the phrase jazz singer. There is no jazz figure so well-known, yet shrouded in mystery, as Lady Day. An epilogue at the end of the documentary mentions that because of the destruction of police records, investigations into Lindas death made during the film proved inconclusive., In the documentary, Luftman explains why her sister wanted to write a Billie Holiday biography: Even thought they came from totally different backgrounds, I think she really identified with Billie. The film opens with footage of Holiday that I had not seen before. elementType: "script", var popupParams = { Intending to write a biography of Billie Holiday, she interviewed friends, fellow performers, and key figures in Holiday's read more. Holiday was promptly arrested and did time in Welfare Island (now known as Roosevelt); she lied about her age to make sure she did not end up in juvenile until she was the age of majority. jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 + wrapper.width() + wrapper.css('padding').replace('px', '') * 2); Tarkoituksena oli kirjoittaa Billie Holidayn elmkerta , hn haastatteli ystvi, muita esiintyji ja Holidayn elmn avainhenkilit, mutta kuoli ennen sen valmistumista. Function: _error_handler, Message: Invalid argument supplied for foreach(), File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/user/popup_modal.php elementType: "script", Raw and brutally honest, incredible testimonies from Charles Mingus, Sarah . BILLIE, directed by James Erskine, is a portrait of legendary singer Billie Holiday based on more than 200 audio interviews conducted by journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl in the 1970s.A compelling look at the jazz legend who should never be forgotten. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup63c877fb829bf'); append_element({ } According to Luftman, her sister Kuehl was threatened by people close to Count Basie, who became close to Kuehl when she interviewed him for the book. Instead we hear the voices of personal friends and colleagues who often played with Holiday, such as Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Shortly after she became a professional singer as a teenager, Holiday began working with musician/producer John Hammond, who introduced her to Benny Goodman in 1933. Kuehl was and still is, posthumously, THE preeminent biographer of Billie Holiday, despite never having completed Holidays biography before she died in 1978. Linda Lipnack Kuehl was writing a biography of Holiday when she died suddenly in 1978, though her family believe she may have been murdered Clarisse Loughrey Friday 13 November 2020 11:03 The documentary doesnt uncover any new visual footage of Billie Holiday. Kim Nalley, a PHD Candidate in History at University of California Berkeley, is a historian, playwright, and actress and is most known as jazz & blues singer with a powerful, 3 1/2 octave range that can go from operatic to gritty blues on a dime, projection that can whisper a ballad yet is capable of filling a room with no microphone, and the ability to scat blistering solos without ever losing the crowds interest or the intense swing. Like most documentaries on older famous Black jazz musicians, stock photography is used since there was no available footage, but better photography could have been used. She also got a lot of abuse and harassment from racists they encountered. She was terribly worried about whether or not God would forgive her.. captainformDomReady(function() { jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 + wrapper.width() + wrapper.css('padding').replace('px', '') * 2); else if ('' == 'right') } Over 8 years, she tracked down and tape-recorded over 200 hours of interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer's short, tumultuous life. clearInterval(captainForm772606PreloadInterval63c877fb829bf); Her death was ruled as a suicide. The woman responsible for those interviews was the journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who took it upon herself in 1971 to begin the years-long process of researching a biography. Her career of 30 years has no breaks, stops or retreats into obscurity. A talented journalist who wrote a biography about the songstress 20 years after her gradual death, Kuehl dedicated a decade to interviewing the friends and artists who knew Holiday best. Both died young Holiday at age 44, of liver cirrhosis. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}, Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Documentary Billie squanders its incendiary premise, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Extra 20% off sale using this QVC discount code, Up to 20% off and extra perks with Booking.com Genius membership, $5 off a $20+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 15% off selected items using this eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK January 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this January, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. He stripped the singer of almost every dollar before leaving her in 1959 to die a heroin addict in a . var popupTrigger = jQuery("#captainformForm772605EmbedPopup63c877fb82c45"); Earl Zaiding, who was Holidays lawyer, calls McKay a pathological liar.. Dcouvrez la bande annonce du film Billie : BILLIE HOLIDAY est l'une des plus grandes voix de tous les temps. Documentary showcasing American legend Billie Holiday, capturing her depths and complexity through the voices of those who knew her best. } }); She sang and recorded till the end of her life. Some people in the documentary allude to Holiday being fond of sex orgies. Theres a lingering sense that Kuehl understood something deeper, but Billie never seems all that curious to find out what that might be. There never was a black critic in swing music. 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. Shaw, bassist Sid Weiss, guitarist Al Arola, guitarist Les Robinson and friend Mae Weiss all mention in their documentary interviews that many racist people back then refused to accept a black female singer performing with a group of white musicians. [6] In 1971, she began plans for a biography of Holiday, who had died aged 44 in 1959. captainform_create_form_popup(popupParams); She was the singer for Artie Shaw and His Orchestra, who were all white. 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. }); UNSUNG HEROES THROUGH THE NIGHT- Special Free Screening Thursday, Jan. 19, NEW YEARS CHEER- A Nostalgic Look at Past New Years Through Images, Movies and Music, They Were Calling It the Twentieth Century, THE ART OF EATING: THE LIFE OF M.F.K. She was fired by John Hammond. Jones says that Hammond fired Holiday because she refused Hammonds demands to sing blues music. captainform_preload_form_popup(popupParams); if ('' == 'left') Depending on whom you believe, she either quit or was fired. Function: view, "Billie documentary review an oral history of Billie Holiday", "Singer, activist, sex machine, addict: the troubled brilliance of Billie Holiday", "Billie is a fanatical yet fascinating portrait of an immortal talent", "Billie a powerful documentary about the life of the singer", "Documentary Billie squanders its incendiary premise review", "Biography covers range of a vocalist (Published 2005)", "Billie review a double tragedy of destruction and obsession", "One Scats, the Other Doesn't (Published 1994)", "Observer review: With Billie by Julia Blackburn", "Billie review a truer, historical spin on the great Billie Holiday", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Linda_Lipnack_Kuehl&oldid=1111802271. She tells us of her hopes and dreams in her own voice. Holiday was accustomed to being the only woman in a band, but with Artie Shaw and His Orchestra, she felt the pain of racial segregation, since she couldnt she wasnt allowed in whites only public places with the rest of the band, such as restaurants and hotels. The problems became too much for her, and she quit working with Artie Shaw and His Orchestra. var readyStateOverflowInterval; Culture Clash:Holiday battled drug addiction, and several people who knew her say that she was a target of the FBI. jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 - wrapper.outerHeight()); Monroe would become Holidays first husband, whom she married in 1941. } var captainformThemeStyle = {}; Her face is an actress as much as her voice. 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. Kuehl was twice-divorced with no children, while Basie was married with children. Function: _error_handler, File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/user/popup_harry_book.php else if ('' == 'right') } } Intending to write a biography of Billie Holiday, she interviewed friends, fellow performers, and key figures in Holiday's life, but died before its completion. }, true); Sign up for a chance to win prizes (such as free gift cards) and get priority alerts or invitations to the hottest lifestyle/culture news, discounts and promotions. In 1971, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday. You can hear Kuehls excellence as an interviewer asking why repeatedly rather than inserting her own understanding. Linda Lipnack Kuehl (January 24, 1940 - February 6, 1978) was an American arts journalist, based in New York City. var popupParams = { clearInterval(captainForm772605PreloadInterval63c877fb83722); Message: Undefined variable: user_membership, File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/user/popup_modal.php jQuery(wrapper).find('a').removeAttr('href'); Nalleysmany philanthropic endeavors include founding theKim Nalley Black Youth Jazz Scholarshipat the California Jazz Conservatory. Her make-up is minimal. Midgett says that Holiday would talk for hours about how she started in prostitution when she was 13 years old. Memry Midgett, an Oakland pianist who played with Holiday in the 1950s and remained close with her, said Holiday confided that she was worried about the sins of her youth and Gods forgiveness. The official cause of death was ruled a suicide, but her younger sister Myra Luftman (who is not interviewed on camera) says in the documentary that Kuehl probably died from foul play because of the research that Keuhl was doing for the book. Kuehl is remarkable for interviewing lesser known people who had a lot of contact with Lady Day. The documentary includes archival news video footage of Joan Allen, a correctional officer who worked at the federal rehabilitation facility in Alderston, West Virginia, where Holiday served her prison time. if ('' == 'left') He was 18, she was 16, and I was three" - but was also full of inaccuracies. Linda Lipnack Kuehl (January 24, 1940 February 6, 1978)[1] was an American arts journalist, based in New York City. The book was left unfinished, Kuehls tapes buried away until now. resize77260563c877fb83722(wrapper); On tour, especially in the U.S. South, they encountered a lot of vicious racism. A snippet plays in the new documentary Billie, a . [7][3][8] Her archive on Holiday included these interviews on 125 audio tapes[8] as well as "a long paper trail, including police files, transcripts of court cases, royalty statements, shopping lists, hospital records, private letters, muddled transcripts and fragments of unfinished chapters. In the late '60s, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Billie. Kuehl was and still is, posthumously, THE preeminent biographer of Billie Holiday, despite never having completed Holiday's biography before she died in 1978. formId: '772606' Considering the documentary is made almost exclusively of one persons previously unheard interviews, I cannot agree. She was 38. Eleanoras parents got married when she was 3 years old, and she was raised primarily in Baltimore. }, 10); Kuehl's extensive interviews of Holiday's contemporaries have been the backbone of many Holiday biographies. }); Jones gets very angry in the interview when he hears that Hammond has denied firing Holiday, while Hammond expresses bewilderment in reacting to Jones claims that Hammond fired Holiday. window.addEventListener('resize', function(){ Kuehl was a journalist and high school teacher that interviewed close to 200 people that knew Ms. Holliday. } The documentary is also organized around approximately 200 hours of interviews conducted over the course of a decade by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who, as the film notes, didn't like seeing Holiday . Over the next decade, she tracked down and tape-recorded interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer's short, tumultuous life. [1], File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/user/popup_modal.php Jimmy Fletcher, an African American who was a narcotics agent for the FBI at the time, says that Holidays agent Joe Glaser worked with the FBI to arrest her in a drug bust for her own good., According to Fletcher, He [Glaser] confided in me that he wanted to save her. A more pertinent flaw would be the ending montage which shows images of current racism against African Americans over Drummer Papa Jo Jones voice. There were reports that McKay was very controlling and unscrupulous when it came to Holidays finances. I do not see the same attention given to Miles Daviss or Charlie Parkers drug use or their abusive relationships. [4], She was a Jewish feminist[5] and a fan of Billie Holiday. She changed her last name to Holiday to capitalize on her fathers connection as a guitarist with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, one of the most respected Black Big Bands of its day. It seems amazing that most writers have speculated on the reason Billie Holiday left both the Basie Band and the Shaw Band without getting the testimony of Basie and Shaw themselves. The audio recordings in Billie come from the archives of New York City-based journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who died by falling from a hotel in Washington, D.C., on February 4, 1978. 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. captainformCustomVars['772605'] = ''; She was a perfectionist, according to her sister, which is why it took so long for Kuehl to work on the uncompleted book. textContent: 'var frmRef=""; try { frmRef=window.top.location.href; } catch(err) {}; var captainform_servicedomain="app.captainform.com";var cfJsHost = "https://";', The documentary Billie, now showing, does not start at Billies birth or death, but rather the date of Linda Kuehls death. Although it may seem counterintuitive to have more audio only interviews for a film documentary instead of videos, we quickly hear the ease and genuineness in the interviewees voices. Holiday grew up in Baltimore, poor and lonely her father had abandoned her and her mother was often absent due to work. Talk:Linda Lipnack Kuehl - Wikipedia Talk:Linda Lipnack Kuehl This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects : Start a discussion about improving the Linda Lipnack Kuehl page Talk pages are where people discuss how to make content on Wikipedia the best that it can be. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. By singing and recording the anti-lynching protest song Strange Fruit Holiday became a race woman and outspoken proponent of civil rights 15 years before Brown v. Board and almost 20 years before the March on Washington. type: "text/javascript", Lipstick and brow pencil are the hallmark features. [13] Some of Kuehl's material was used in Donald Clarke's 1994 biography, Wishing on the Moon[14] and her interviews were used in Julia Blackburn's 2005 biography With Billie: a New Look at the Unforgettable Lady Day. formId: '772606' resize77260563c877fb82c45(wrapper); popupTrigger.css('visibility', 'visible'); "She excited me with just three notes," drummer Roy Harte tells Kuehl. Viewers will see sparkling flashes of Holidays personality that render other biographies and documentaries one dimensional. Her romances didnt get any better. The director James Erskine does a great job inserting commentary during relevant moments. Her family, however, believed otherwise. Over the next decade, she tracked down and tape-recorded interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer's short, tumultuous life. To find your favorite venue check here. They got married in 1957. if('' == 'floating') { Linda Lipnack Kuehl spent eight years trying to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday. Some of the best moments of the documentary are hearing Billie talk about herself in her slight drawl infused with vocal fry. When they reach the top, something tragic happens.. Her second drug bust came in San Francisco in 1949, but she didnt get any prison time for that arrest. Linda Lipnack Kuehl IMDbPro Starmeter See rank Help contribute to IMDb. When asked if the stories were true that Holiday had to darken her skin when performing with Basie and his band, because she was so much lighter-skinned then they were, Basie also claims ignorance about that issue. var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772606EmbedPopup63c877fb829bf'); captainformDomReady(function() { (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()}}()}}; Elle recueille 200 heures de tmoignages incroyables : Charles . Enjoy our special Billie Holiday Gallery of photos, posters, record covers, surprises and film clips with lots of great music. [8], Kuehl's research revealed that Holiday's addictions were "becoming a crutch for a life beset with violence, misogyny and racism."[2]. Keuhl is also remarkable for not trying to angle the information in a Procrustean manner to fit her argument. One is the subject Billie Holiday and the other, her biographer Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Many important details of her life and her musical genius have been overshadowed by a lurid interest in her love life and drug use. resize77260563c877fb82c45(wrapper); var wrapper = jQuery('#captainformForm772605EmbedPopup63c877fb82c45'); jQuery(wrapper).css('top', jQuery(window).height() * 0.4 - wrapper.outerHeight()); [3] She worked as a high school teacher and free lance writer. Then, before she could finish her biography, Kuehl died: In 1978, her body was found on a Washington, D.C. street. Billie feels typical, even if its attention to detail gives it an obvious appeal. resize77260663c877fb829bf(wrapper); 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. else if ('' == 'right') However, Linda's book was never finished and the tapes never heard . [3] In 1978 she was found dead on a Washington, D.C. sidewalk,[3][8][10] after attending a Count Basie concert. & # x27 ; s sudden death in 1959 at age 44 shows of. She refused Hammonds demands to sing blues music attention to detail gives it an appeal... Was eventually discovered by producer John Hammond use or their abusive relationships their abusive relationships Day... Inserting commentary during relevant moments have sex, mostly with women Strange Fruit was very and... If its attention to detail gives it an obvious appeal Holiday became an alcoholic addicted... 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Lots of great music the top, something tragic happens a great job inserting commentary during relevant.... Every dollar before leaving her in 1959 to die a heroin addict in a racism against African Americans over Papa... Ballads for Billie is an actress as much as Holiday was the first master of best... Weighs in with a diagnosis captainForm772606PreloadInterval63c877fb829bf ) ; if ( `` == 'left )! Eventually discovered by producer John Hammond Holiday Gallery of photos, posters, record covers surprises. Keuhl is also remarkable for interviewing lesser known people who had a lot abuse. Or as a suicide other writers ' biographies of Holiday that I had not seen before linda lipnack kuehl biography the best of... Refused Hammonds demands to sing blues music weighs in with a diagnosis talk hours... Kuehl conducted with writers were published in the late & # x27 ; s material remarkable. Though her sister was murdered book was left unfinished, Kuehls tapes buried away now... 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