stylistic:tone, information:extraction, quality:corruption, structural:summarization
Films and plays about Holiday

The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". The film also depicts Holiday's bisexuality and relationship with Tallulah Bankhead. Day was also nominated for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe in 2021.

Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination. In 2014, she received a Tony Award win. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.

Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel ' s 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".