Billie Holiday Biography

Fast Facts

• Appeared on a postage stamp introduced by the United States Postal Service in 1994
• A statue in her likeness was erected at the corner of Lafayette and Pennsylvania Avenues in Baltimore
• Received no formal musical training and never learned how to read sheet music
• After moving to New York, she sang for tips in obscure Harlem nightclubs, sometimes accompanied by a house piano player and sometimes working as part of a group of performers
• San along with Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong records in after-hours jazz clubs as a young teenager
• Quote: "Singing songs like 'The Man I love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck․ I've lived songs like that․"
• A jazz singer whose prominence rose to its height in the 1950s, she was known for her unique singing voice and her signature, moving ballads including "Strange Fruit․"
• Her trademark look on stage included wearing white gardenias in her hair
• Chose her stage name because of her admiration for actress Billie Dove
• After performing with Count Basie and Artie Shaw in 1937 and 1938 respectively, she became one of the first black women to work with a white orchestra