Films

Billie Holiday Biopic on the Way, Suzan-Lori Parks to Write

Holiday: Carl Van Vechten/ Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

Lady Day is getting another biopic treatment. Variety reports that a Billie Holiday film is in the works with R&B artist Andra Day possibly taking on the lead role. Suzan-Lori Parks is writing “Billie,” and Lee Daniels (“Precious”) is in talks to direct.

Born Eleanora Fagan in 1915, Holiday never received any professional training or learned how to read music, yet she became one of the most renowned and influential jazz singers ever. During her three-decade career Holiday — also known as Lady Day — recorded tracks including the seminal anti-lynching ballad “Strange Fruit,” “God Bless the Child,” “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” and “My Man.” She received four Grammys, all awarded after her 1959 death. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1976.

“Billie” is currently shopping a studio. No word on when production will kick off, “but with deals firming, the hope is for shooting to start before the end of the year,” the source writes.

Diana Ross portrayed Holiday in the 1972 biopic “Lady Sings the Blues.” Holiday’s life was also the basis of the 1986 play “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.” A version of the latter starring Audra McDonald (“The Good Fight”) was filmed in 2014 and aired on HBO in 2016.

Parks is the Pulitzer-winning playwright of “Topdog/Underdog.” She wrote the upcoming Richard Wright adaptation “Native Son.” The 1930s South Side Chicago-set story follows a poor young black man working as a chauffeur for his white landlord’s family. “Native Son” is in post-production and is expected to open next year.

Daniels is attached to direct a remake of the classic 1983 mother-daughter drama “Terms of Endearment.” Oprah is apparently his top choice to star, but she hasn’t officially signed on to the project.

Day’s first album, “Cheers to the Fall,” was released in 2015. She received two Grammy nods for the record: Best R&B Album and Best R&B Performance for single “Rise Up.” Day appeared in Thurgood Marshall biopic “Marshall” and voiced Sweet Tea in “Cars 3.”


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