This film is the story of both the great jazz singer Billie Holiday and her biographer Linda Kuehl, a New York journalist. For almost eight years in the 1970s Kuehl immersed herself in Holiday’s life interviewing friends and colleagues including Count Basie, Charles Mingus, and John Hammond.

Before she finished her research, Kuehl took her own life. Director James Erskine based this film on Kuehl’s research including notes, transcripts, and over 200 hours of recorded interviews to tell the twin stories of Holiday’s life and Kuehl’s obsession with creating a biography of an American jazz icon.

Awards, Festivals, Reviews

Premiered at Telluride Film Festival.