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If ever there were a musician who deserved more than one biopic, surely it is Billie Holiday. The jazz singer got the biopic treatment first in 1972 with Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross in a traditional cradle-to-grave overview of the life of “Lady Day,” as she was often known. Now, with a few more decades of perspective, another Billie Holiday biopic has hit the scene: The United States Vs. Billie Holiday, which began streaming on Hulu on Friday.
Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Lee Daniels—with a script by Suzan-Lori Parks, based on the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari—this new film focuses not on an overview of Holiday’s life, but on the way, the U.S. government targeted and harassed her, both for her drug use and for her controversial song, “Strange Fruit.” This time, singer Andra Day steps into the shoes of Lady Day, while Moonlight star Trevante Rhodes takes on the role of Jimmy Fletcher, a man who helped the government bring down Holiday.
It’s a complicated story that can’t truly be covered in a two-hour film, much less in a short article on the internet, but here’s a brief overview of The United States Vs. Billie Holiday true story.
Is The United States Vs. Billie Holiday based on a true story?
Yes. The United States Vs. Billie Holiday tells the true story of the American jazz singer Billie Holiday, who was targeted by the U.S. government in the 1940s both for her drug use and for her song “Strange Fruit,” which protested the brutal lynchings of Black Americans that were happening across the country. The film was adapted from writer Johann Hari’s 2015 non-fiction book about the war on drugs, which profiled earlier jazz figures in the drug war, including Holiday.
The film no doubt also draws much of its story from Holiday’s 1956 ghostwritten autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, which was also the basis for the 1972 Billie Holiday biopic of the same name. (That movie inspired The United States Vs. Billie Holiday director Lee Daniels to get into filmmaking, he told The New York Times.) In the memoir, Holiday details the experience of being busted for drug use and put on trial. “It was called ‘The United States of America versus Billie Holiday,’” she wrote, “and that’s just the way it felt.”
She begged to get help from a hospital to cure her addiction but was sentenced to a year in prison instead, according to an excerpt from Hari’s book titled “The Hunting of Billie Holiday,” which can be read on Politico.
Who is the Trevante Rhodes’ character Jimmy Fletcher? Is Jimmy Fletcher a real person?
Yes, Jimmy Fletcher was a real person. He was a Black agent assigned by the egregiously racist head of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger (played by Garrett Hedlund in the movie), to track Holiday’s every move. According to Hari’s essay—which details how Anslinger and Fletcher targeted Holiday and, in particular, Anslinger’s blatantly racist approach to his job—the singer really did strip down naked when Fletcher was sent to her apartment to raid it, just as we see in the film. In fact, according to the article, one detail was left out of that scene—Holiday also “pissed in front of them, defying them to watch.”
Hari also reported that Fletcher later told journalist Linda Kuehl—who was conducting interviews for a biography of Holiday that was never published—that he never stopped feeling guilty for what he’d done to Holiday.
Who is Natasha Lyonne’s character, Tallulah Bankhead?
Tallulah Bankhead was an actor best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, and a close friend of Billie Holiday’s. Bankhead was known for her promiscuous sex life, and was rumored to have had romantic relationships with many women, and, according to The New Yorker, once introduced herself at a party by saying, “I’m a lesbian!” though she later said she was joking.
Was Billie Holiday gay?
Though it is not touched on in-depth in this film, rumors swirled that Bankhead and Holiday—who were undoubtedly close—had an affair. While many have accepted the idea that Billie Holiday was bisexual as truth, it is hard to point to concrete evidence of rumors from so long ago, especially at a time when gay and bisexual women operated in complete secrecy, for their own safety.
