It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Lady Sings the Blues (1972) – Musical #763

Studio:
Paramount Pictures

Director:
Sidney J. Furie

Starring:
Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, James T. Callahan, Paul Hampton, Sid Melton, Virginia Caper, Isabel Sanford, Ned Glass, Scatman Crothers

Plot:
A fictionalized biography on the life and career of jazz singer, Billie Holiday (Ross). The film details her teenage life, rise to fame struggles, and her romance with Louis McKay (Williams).

Trivia:
• While elements of the film are fictional, the biographical film is based on Billie Holiday’s autobiography of the same title that she wrote with William Dufty. Some elements that took dramatic license include:
– Richard Pryor’s role of “Piano Man,” was a fictional character but a combination of several musicians who were close with Billie Holiday, according to Diana Ross’s biographer.
– Louis McKay (played by Billy Dee Williams) is kind and heroic, and a romantic figure throughout the film. In real life, McKay and Holiday weren’t married until near the end of her life. In real life, McKay was also abusive and controlling.
– While Count Bassie is shown in a photo montage, many of the bandleaders Holiday worked with were omitted (Artie Shaw, Louis Armstrong, etc.)
• Diana Ross’s first feature film. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the role.
• After Billie Holiday’s autobiography was published in 1956, there was interest in adapting it into a film throughout the 1950s and late-1960s until this film was made.
• Paul Winfield and Levi Stubbs (lead singer of the Four Tops) were considered for the role of Louis McKay that eventually went to Billy Dee Williams.
• The film premiered in New York City on Oct. 12, 1972, but Diana Ross was not present, because she was too close to giving birth to her second child, according to Ross’s biographer.
• The original motion picture soundtrack for the film was named Album of the Year when the film came out.

Highlights:
• Wonderful Bob Mackie costumes

Notable Songs:
• “The Man I Love” performed by Diana Ross
• “Strange Fruit” performed by Diana Ross
• “I Cried for You” performed by Diana Ross
• “Mean to Me” performed by Diana Ross

My review:
While singer Diana Ross was familiar with performing in front of audiences, on television and acted in a television appearances, taking on a starring film role in a major motion picture is a daunting task to consider.

After the singing group The Supremes broke up in the late 1960s, Ross was finding her way as a solo performer, and now an actress. When it was announced that Ross would be starring as the famed jazz singer, Billie Holiday in the upcoming film Lady Sings the Blues (1972), jazz lovers and film critics raised an eyebrow, wondering if she could fill the shoes of Holiday and if her acting abilities were up to par.

When the film came out, many were thrilled that Ross proved them wrong. From Roger Ebert’s 1972 review:
“My first reaction when I learned that Diana Ross had been cast to play Billie Holiday was a quick and simple one: I didn’t think she could do it. I knew she could sing, although not as well as Billie Holiday and certainly not in the same way, but I couldn’t imagine Diana Ross reaching the emotional highs and lows of one of the more extreme public lives of our time … All of those thoughts were wiped out of my mind within the first three or four minutes of “Lady Sings the Blues”, and I was left with a feeling of complete confidence in a dramatic performance. This was one of the great performances of 1972.”

The film begins, with credits rolling over the action, with Billie Holiday (Diana Ross) being incarcerated and going through the process of having her mug shot taken, thrown into an isolated cell and eventually being put into a constraining straight jacket. As Holiday lays in the cell, seemingly in shock, she begins to think back on her life. The flashback begins with 15-year-old Holiday, who is working, and is raped. She eventually makes it to New York City, where she works as a maid in a brothel, eventually becoming a sex worker herself. She becomes a singer in a nightclub, with the help of a piano player (Richard Pryor). The film depicts her rise to fame, including becoming a Black singer for an all-white band, something that wasn’t done in the 1930s due to racism and segregation. Holiday travels across the country with the band, witnessing tragic racial violence. Eventually, a bandmate gets her hooked on drugs, which puts her at odds with her romantic partner, Louis McKay (Billy Dee Williams), and makes her performances unpredictable.

Like most biographical films, the film takes creative liberties and some plot points are fictional. For example, Richard Pryor’s character is based on several musicians dedicated to Holiday. If you search “Billie Holiday Piano Man” online, Mal Waldron and Bobby Tucker are the first two to appear in the search, but both lived long lives; passing away in the mid-2000s, unlike Pryor’s character in the film.

Another example, is the consistent relationship with Louis McKay, played by the wonderful Billy Dee Williams. While McKay and Holiday knew each other for several years, they weren’t not married until the end of her life. Sadly, McKay was not the benevolent figure in her life like the film depicts. Some dates also don’t align, such as “Strange Fruit” wasn’t performed until 1939, and it seems that portion of the film was taking place in the mid-1930s.

Other historians note that other notes from Holiday’s life are omitted from the film, such as collaborations with different musicians and bandleader, like Artie Shaw; or that Holiday wanted to adopt children, according to Diana Ross’s biographer. While it would have been interesting to see these plot points in the film, the film was 2 hours and 24 minutes, it would be hard to capture everything in her life.

While I didn’t leave this fictionalized biography thinking, “This is Billie Holiday’s life and now I have learned something,” I did leave knowing I had watched some special performances.

Because of the negative reaction to Ross’s casting, she considered being asked to be removed from the film.

“I’m not saying that the problems that Billie faced are the same as any that I’ve had, but I can relate to problems and tragedies also,” Ross is quoted by her biographer. “There was such a total ‘no’ about me playing Billie … I was so upset by it all that one day I phoned Berry (Gordy) and asked if it were too late to stop even before we got started.”

Despite the backlash of Diana Ross’s casting, she does an amazing job, as she plays this complex character who goes through emotional highs and lows throughout the film. It’s astonishing that this is her first feature film! One thing I respect is that Ross never tries to imitate Holiday’s speaking or singing voice. Instead, she is paying tribute to performer.

“She doesn’t sing in her own style, and she never tries to imitate Holiday, but she sings somehow in the manner of Holiday,” Ebert wrote in his review. “There is an uncanny echo, a suggestion, and yet the style is a tribute to Billie Holiday, not an impersonation.”

Of the songs Ross sings in the film, I thought her versions of “The Man I Love” and “Strange Fruit” the best.

I will note, that while she does a wonderful job, parts of the film are difficult to watch, especially if you know anyone with substance abuse. It’s heartbreaking.

Ross also improvised a great deal in the film, which Billy Dee Williams said he wasn’t comfortable with, according to Ross’s biographer, but you can’t tell. Williams is also outstanding in this film.

One of those improvised scenes was when McKay is trying to romance Holiday on their first meeting. They got to the Manhattan Café and have flirty banter back and forth. The script wasn’t working, and they were asked to improvise, according to producer Berry Gordy. The scene was performed in one take and it was “one of the cutest scenes” Gordy had ever seen.

Film historian Donald Bogle also notes the Manhattan Café and his film as groundbreaking:
“There has never been (still has not been) a Black movie like it … Lady Sings the Blues takes Black romance the full, larger-than-life distance: for the first time in a motion picture, we see a black couple who meet, court, fight, make up, fight again, are more often than not cautious about commitment. In the most famous scene, the two sit until the early hours of the morning in a nightclub talking … trying to outfox one another. It is quite conceivably the most real, romantic moment between a Black man and Black woman we have seen in Hollywood film.”

As an aside, Billy Dee Williams is extremely handsome in this film, with Berry Gordy comparing him to a “Black Clark Gable.” Richard Pryor is also excellent in this film, though he breaks your heart.

One naysayer of the film while it was in production was jazz pianist Leonard Feather, who changed his mind after he saw the film: “To my amazement, this newcomer destroyed almost all my reservations. Miss Ross brought to her portrayal a sense of total immersion in the character. Dramatically, this is a tour de force.”

This film is magnificent portrait of the talent Ross possessed. While this isn’t a factual portrait of Holiday’s life, it did make me curious to research aspects of her life I wasn’t aware of and learn more — which in my book is always a benefit with any biopic.

Check out the Comet Over Hollywood Facebook page, follow on Twitter at @HollywoodComet, e-mail at cometoverhollywood@gmail.com or Instagram at @CometOverHollywood.