In the 1972 biopic "Lady Sings The Blues," she was played by Diana Ross, who looked and sounded nothing like her. Though in both those films she got to sing, too. In the 1947 feature "New Orleans," she played a white opera singer's housemaid. In the 1935 Duke Ellington short "Symphony In Black," Holiday, at age 19, played a spurned woman, bounced to the studio floor by her unfaithful man in take after painful take. KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: The movies have not been kind to Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday." Our jazz critic and jazz film-follower Kevin Whitehead has this review. The song is central to Hulu's new biopic, "The United States Vs. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.ĭAVIES: Billie Holiday in 1956, revisiting her signature song "Strange Fruit," whose lyrics depict a lynching. Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root. BILLIE HOLIDAY: (Singing) Southern trees bear a strange fruit.
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