Lady Sings the Blues

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Rotten Tomatoes® Score
72% 86%

In Theaters: October 12, 1972 (limited)

R | 2h 24m | Drama

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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, reflects on her turbulent life. Raped in her youth by a drunk (Adolph Caesar), then compelled to work as a domestic in a Harlem whorehouse, Holliday is encouraged to try for a singing career by the bordello's pianist (Richard Pryor). She rises as high as it is possible to go in the white-dominated show business world of the 1930s, but can't handle the pressure and turns to narcotics. The film takes several liberties with the 44-year existence of Lady Day. Among the Billie Holiday standards performed by Ross are My Man, I Cried for You, Lover Man, Them There Eyes, and the title song.