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Lady Sings the Blues
Directed by
Sidney J. Furie
1972
2h 24m
R
Drama
,
Romance
,
Biography
,
and more
7
72%
86%
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The story of the troubled life and career of the legendary Jazz singer, Billie Holiday.
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Cast of Lady Sings the Blues
Diana Ross
Billie Holiday
Billy Dee Williams
Louis McKay
Richard Pryor
Piano Man
James T. Callahan
Reg Hanley
Paul Hampton
Harry
Sid Melton
Jerry
Virginia Capers
Mama Holiday
Yvonne Fair
Yvonne
Isabel Sanford
The Madame
Tracee Lyles
The Prostitute
Ned Glass
The Agent
Milton Selzer
The Doctor
Norman Bartold
The Detective #1
Clay Tanner
The Detective #2
Jester Hairston
The Butler
Bert Kramer
The Policeman
Paul Micale
The Maitre d'
Michele Aller
The Singer
Byron Kane
The Announcer
Barbara Minkus
Radio Actress
Kay Lewis
Angela DeMarco
Helen Lewis
Debbie McGee
George Wyner
The M.C.
Shirley Melline
The Policewoman
Toby Russ
The Jail Guard
Larry Duran
Hood #1
Ernest Robinson
Hood #2
Don McGovern
Reporter #1
Dick Poston
Reporter #2
Charles Woolf
Reporter #3
Denise Denise
Denise
Lynn Hamilton
Aunt Ida
Victor Morosco
Vic
Robert L. Gordy
The Hawk
Harry Caesar
The Rapist
Paulene Myers
Mrs. Edson
Scatman Crothers
Big Ben
Lady Sings the Blues Reviews
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
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.
New York Times
Vincent Canby
How is it possible for a movie that is otherwise so dreadful to contain such a singularly attractive performance in the title role?
Slant Magazine
Eric Henderson
Berry Gordy's gift to Diana Ross was this lavish, bloated Billie Holiday biopic.
AV Club
Nathan Rabin
For all the liberties the film takes with the facts of Holiday's life, the bottomless hurt in Ross' voice as she channels Holiday's tartly tragic spirit rings true.
Chicago Reader
Dave Kehr
Clearly, it's an affront to Holiday's art, but just as clearly, it's a good piece of low entertainment.
New Yorker
Pauline Kael
Lady Sings the Blues is as good as one can expect from the genre -- better, at times -- and I enjoyed it hugely, yet I don't want Billie Holiday's hard, melancholic sound buried under this avalanche of pop.
Variety
Variety Staff
The film serves as a very good screen debut vehicle for Diana Ross, supported strongly by excellent casting, handsome 1930s physical values, and a script which is far better in dialog than structure.
TIME Magazine
James Collins
Billie Holiday, an artist, deserves a far better memorial.
Chicago Tribune
Gene Siskel
So this, then, is a big, sprawling show-business biography with human motivations thrown out the window. On that score it succeeds, and part of the credit must go to Williams.
Arizona Republic
Phil Strassberg
Lady Sings the Blues has more than a few shallow moments but is a personal, smashing debut for Miss Ross in films.
Village Voice
Andrew Sarris
Apart from the extraordinarily camera-wise charisma of Diana Ross, Lady Sings the Blues is graced by a mumbly-magical performances by Ricahrd Pryor as Piano Man... and by the ultra leading man stability of Billy Dee Williams.
Detroit Free Press
Susan Stark
Lady Sings the Blues, then, shows precious little artistry, never mind integrity, where Billie Holiday's life is concerned.
Newsday
Joseph Gelmis
It's a film where coincidence and oversimplification are forgivable, because the form itself is really adult fairy tale or fantasy.
Philadelphia Inquirer
William B. Collins
The onetime lead vocalist of the Supremes [Ross] shows an amazing range as an actress, triumphing astonishingly in a movie which is nothing to brag about otherwise.
Miami Herald
Candice Russell
It is Diana Ross' film, and she manages to carry it despite its epic two hour and twenty minute length.
Orlando Sentinel
G.J. Fleming
As a movie, it is a good debut for Diana Ross, though probably an inadequately slick testimonial to the tragic life of Billie Holiday.
Los Angeles Times
Charles Champlin
The exciting surprise of Lady Sings the Blues is not that Miss Ross sings well: it is that she acts with terrific charm and very impressive intensity.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Elston Brooks
It is difficult to describe acting, but the key word would be "believability." Miss Ross gives us this throughout.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Joe Pollack
Furie does a generally good job, and it was cheering to see some of the old-fashioned techniques like railroad wheels, theater marquees and newspaper clippings used to show passage of time and space. They are corny, but they are effective.
New York Daily News
Kathleen Carroll
The real trouble with this movie is that it is funny, and Billie's life was anything but that.
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