Lady Sings the Blues

Supported in her performance of the George and Ira Gershwin tune by "Piano Man" (Richard Pryor) but unwilling to take part in a crude tipping ritual, young Billie Holiday (Diana Ross) is rescued by Louis McKay (Billy Dee Williams) in Lady Sings The Blues, 1972.

Fleeing prostitution in 1930’s Harlem, Diana Ross as Eleanora Holiday proves to club owner Jerry (Sid Melton) she’s no dancer, but is rescued by “Piano Man” Richard Pryor, winning a job and choosing a name, with the Gerald Marks-Seymour Sims song, then known as a Ruth Etting standard, in Lady Sings The Blues, 1972.

Taken to a plush New York club on their first night out, young Billie Holliday (Diana Ross) jousts with man-about-town Louis McKay (Billy Dee Williams) in Lady Sings The Blues, 1972, directed by Sidney J. Furie.

Newsy opening credit sequence for Berry Gordy's production of the Billie Holliday biography Lady Sings The Blues, 1972, starring Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor.