Billie Holliday made some lovely records with the Teddy Wilson Orchestra in the 1930s.She made some good records for jazz impresario Norman Granz towards the end of her career,their merit largely due to her accompanying musicians as her voice was shot to pieces by then.What happened in between is the area covered by Sidney Furie's "Lady sings the blues"which uses the title if not much else of her 1958 ghosted autobiography.Like fellow 50s icons James Dean and Marilyn Monroe,Miss Holliday has achieved a post mortem fame far exceeding that she enjoyed whilst she was alive.She is repeatedly presented as a proto-lesbian,proto-bisexual,proto-feminist,proto-strong black woman or whatever label people who think it empowers them to attribute their beliefs to a dead person who is consequently unable to refute them choose to stick on her. My interest in Miss Holliday is strictly musical.In my opinion she was a considerable artist despite her lifestyle,not because of it. She clearly had some unsuitable male friends,but she wasn't a "victim". If she enjoyed the company of people in "The Life",well,she was all grown up,it was her business and her decision. Playing Miss Holliday in the film,Miss Diana Ross does not try to imitate her,nor does she resemble her in any way.She sings songs associated with her quite competently,and performs rather than acts,as top class singers(Frank Sinatra,Peggy Lee)tended to do.She is clearly a charismatic performer,and that shows on the screen.Unfortunately she does not share Miss Holliday's talent for turning dross into gold,for dross is what "Lady sings the blues" quite evidently is. Sensationalist and exploitative,it concentrates on the subject's sex life and drug addiction,a particularly unpleasant shot of Miss Ross sprawled unconscious over the toilet is my defining image of the film. Clearly Mr Furie was aiming high. If you want to get a more realistic view of Miss Holliday's life read "Wishing on the Moon" by Donald Clarke.Her early recordings are available (now out of copyright) on a multitude of labels,generally the only difference being the packaging.Listen to the freshness and innocence of "I wished on the moon" and forget that this terrible film was ever made.