Even with little knowledge about Billie Holiday's life, watching this movie one soon begins to realize, that it is not a biopic about one of the greatest jazz singers of all times. They obviously just used her name to gain more attention.<br /><br />If you can forget that, you see a story about the life of a fictional jazz singer in the 40s. There are some similarities to Billie's life: the prostitution and the drug abuse and a bit of racism. But everything is smoothed down and the core of the movie is the love story between the singer and her husband, the love of her life. It even has a happy ending: the successful concert in Carnegie Hall with the audience applauding and the singer happy, her husband proud and the manager smelling the dollars.<br /><br />As a drama/romance for the mass(or Oscar) market, the movie works well and Diana Ross' performance is surprisingly good and in the more tragic scenes she even managed to give it some deepness. Billy Dee Williams looks sharp and plays his part as the caring husband convincingly. Richard Pryor unfortunately tried to improvise his role and failed.<br /><br />Drama/romance fans might enjoy but Billie fans better buy a book.