American jazz singer and Songwriter who sang "Strange Fruit," "Easy Living," and "Lady Sings the Blues." She received numerous awards, including being inducted into the Grammy Award Hall of Fame.
She went to New York City, where she and her mother both ended up in prostitution and were later sent to prison.
After her release from prison at age fourteen, she began singing under the stagename Billie Holiday. Holiday's name came from Billie Dove, an Actress, and the man she believed to be her father, Clarence Holiday.
She married Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941 and, after their divorce in 1957, she married Louis McKay on March 28, 1957.
She was good friends with fellow jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald.
