Diana Ross plays the magnificent, tragic song stylist Billie Holiday, who while writhing in a strait jacket in a prison cell, awaiting sentencing on drug charges, tells the story of her troubled life and career.
July 12, 1921 in Manchester Depot, Iowa, USA
6 August 1928, Alameda County, California, USA
22 September 1925, Sumter, South Carolina, USA
19 May 1907, California, USA
9 November 1913, Ocilla, Georgia, USA
1 December 1940, Peoria, Illinois, USA
1931, Detroit, Michigan, USA
4 October 1930, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
10 October 1934, San Diego, California, USA
6 November 1895, Italy
26 July 1925, Los Angeles, California, USA
14 December 1916, New York, USA
January 4, 1929 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
26 March 1944, Detroit, Michigan, USA
20 October 1945, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
11 August 1908, Sparks, Nevada, USA
April 18, 1916 in New York, New York, USA
25 April 1930, Yazoo City, Mississippi, USA
9 July 1901, Belews Creek, North Carolina, USA
20 August 1937, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
30 October 1926, Los Angeles, California, USA
23 May 1910, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
2 January 1916, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
January 25, 2006
Ross so perfectly captures the essence of Billie Holiday's vocal style that it sends chills down your spine.
October 23, 2004
The movie is filled with many of the great Billie Holiday songs, and Ross handles them in an interesting way. She doesn't sing in her own style, and she never tries to imitate Holiday, but she sings somehow in the manner of Holiday.
January 01, 2000
Clearly, it's an affront to Holiday's art, but just as clearly, it's a good piece of low entertainment.
January 24, 2006
Ross conveys the vulnerability and determination of her character across a very believable arc of maturation.
June 30, 2011
Though she doesn't look or sing as Billie Holiday, Diana Rosss gives a commendable performance in this fictionalized biopic, for which she received an Oscar noimination.
November 01, 2004
Great score, great singing, but overdramatic thanks to Ross.
October 07, 2005
Ross and director Sidney J. Furie seem to feel that the slower the song, the more serious the mood, so at times the film seems to be grinding almost to a halt
October 28, 2005
Berry Gordy's gift to Diana Ross was this lavish, bloated Billie Holiday biopic.
May 09, 2005
How is it possible for a movie that is otherwise so dreadful to contain such a singularly attractive performance in the title role?
October 03, 2006
View this film about Billie Holiday as a completely fictional story, and you'll enjoy it far more than you would otherwise.
