Jennifer Holliday

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jennifer Holliday
Birth name Jennifer-Yvette Holliday
Born October 19, 1960 (1960-10-19) (age 47)
Origin Riverside, Texas, U.S.
Genre(s) R&B, Soul music, Pop, House, Club/Dance, Gospel
Occupation(s) Singer, actress
Instrument(s) Vocals
Years active 1980–present
Label(s) Geffen (1982-1990), Arista (1990-1996)

Jennifer Holliday (born Jennifer-Yvette Holliday on October 19, 1960 in Riverside, Texas) is a Grammy and Tony award-winning American singer and actress. She started her career on Broadway in musicals such as Dreamgirls, and later became a successful recording artist. She is best known for her debut single, the Dreamgirls showstopper and Grammy Award-winning R&B/Pop hit, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going."

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Broadway actress

Jennifer Holliday landed her first big role on Broadway in 1979. At age 19, she landed a part the same day she auditioned for the Broadway production of Your Arms Too Short To Box With God.[1] Her performance in that musical earned her a 1981 Drama Desk nomination. Her next role was the role for which she is best known: the role of Effie Melody White in the Broadway musical Dreamgirls. Holliday originated the role of Effie and remained with the show for nearly four years after its December 20, 1981 opening. Her performance in the role was widely acclaimed, particularly in her iconic performance of the musical number that ends Act I, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going".

Among the acclaim was Holliday's sweep of awards in 1982, including the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, a Grammy award for her recorded version of the song, and Drama Desk and Theater World awards for the performance. Holliday also performed in the touring company of Sing, Mahalia, Sing in 1986.

[edit] Recording artist

Jennifer Holliday's version of the song And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going made Holliday a star on Broadway. The version of the song was liked by many fans so much that Holliday was encouraged to transform the song into a hit on Billboard charts. In 1982, a pop version of the song was released as a single. The song became very successful, peaking at number-one on the Billboard R&B Singles chart, and number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. She continued to have success as a recording artist through the rest of the decade. Her follow-up song, "I Am Love", became another hit in 1983.

Jennifer Holliday's 1996 The Best of Jennifer Holliday album.
Jennifer Holliday's 1996 The Best of Jennifer Holliday album.

Holliday's later R&B, Pop and/or Dance chart and radio hits included. "Hard Time For Lovers" (1985), "No Frills Love" (1985), "Heart on the Line" (1987), "I'm on Your Side" (1991) and "A Woman's Got the Power" (2000). "A Woman's Got the Power" charted at #7 in summer of 1999. However, it recharted the following year, peaking at #1. She continued to appear on the charts throughout the 1990s, but never had the same level of success she had in the 1980s. Holliday was a featured vocalist on the #1 single "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner in 1985. A number of her songs became hits on the US Dance charts as well. In fact, a club mix of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was produced by Rosabel, peaked at #6 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 2001.

In the 1990s, Holliday lost a substantial amount of weight and talked about her health struggles with depression during promotional interviews.[2] Initially, the weight loss was attained strictly by diet. Eventually, in an effort to avoid regaining the weight, Holliday had gastric bypass surgery. After the initial weight loss, she released the I’m On Your Side LP and video. The video, unlike most videos, was recorded live. In 1995, Holliday released a gospel album entitled On & On. In a March 2008 interview she revealed that she was in the studio working on a new album to be released later this year.[3]

[edit] Television appearances

Apart from her career in the music industry and on the stage, Holliday has also made appearances on primetime television. In addition to appearances on Touched By An Angel and Hang Time, she had a half dozen appearances in a recurring guest star role on Ally McBeal, where she played choir director Lisa Knowles.

In 2001, she sang America The Beautiful on the first WWE pay-per-view to be held after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

On June 26, 2007 she made a surprise appearance at the BET Awards singing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" in a duet with Jennifer Hudson, who portrayed Effie White in a 2006 film adaptation of Dreamgirls. Holliday had repeatedly expressed her displeasure with the film version of Dreamgirls in the media, also noting she was not offered a cameo role in the film (one of the other original Dreamgirls cast members, Loretta Devine, was given a cameo in the film version). [4]

[edit] Personal

Holliday was married twice. In March 1991, just 2 months after she met keyboardist Billy Meadows in a nightclub where she was singing, they married. "He had a great sense of humor and he made me laugh all the time," Holliday says of her first husband. "I had been feeling bad for so long, I wanted to laugh." In December 1991, just nine months later, they divorced: the marriage, according to Holliday, "ran out of steam" :"We just didn't know each other well enough".[5]

The second time around, she married a man much like her father. Her second marriage was to Rev. Andre Woods (21 March 1993 - 1995), a minister in Michigan, which was covered by Jet magazine. This husband was a charismatic Detroit preacher who, she says, was a player who also ran through her money. Still, Holliday was devastated when, in 1994, that marriage, too, ended, just four months after her mother died of cancer. "It was like experiencing two deaths at the same time," Jennifer remembers. "The grief was overwhelming." [6] She currently resides in Manhattan, New York.

Holliday was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2000. In 2001 she mc'd the landmark tap dance show "21 Below" at Town Hall in NYC and also headlined Equity Cares/Broadway Fights Aids' "Nothing Like a Dame" show at the St. James Theatre where she was accompanied by teenage tap dance sensation Michela Marino Lerman and Hannah Leah Dunn.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Selected Albums

[edit] Singles

Year Single U.S. R&B U.S. Hot 100 U.S. Dance Album
1982 "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" 1 22 - Dreamgirls (Original Broadway Cast Album)
"I Am Changing" 29 - -
1983 "I Am Love" 2 49 - Feel My Soul
"Just Let Me Wait" 23 - -
1985 "Hard Time for Lovers" 17 69 26 Say You Love Me
"No Frills Love" 29 87 1
1987 "Heart on the Line" 48 - - Get Close to My Love
1991 "I'm on Your Side" 10 - - I'm on Your Side
"Love Stories" 29 - -
1996 "No Frills Love" - - 1 The Best of Jennifer Holliday
2000 "A Woman's Got the Power" - - 1 Breaking Through
"Think It Over" - - 1 Divine Divas
2001 "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" (Rosabel with Jennifer Holliday) - - 6 —
2007 "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" (Jennifer Holliday with Rosabel) - - 10
"Givin' Up" - - - Why Did I Get Married? soundtrack

[edit] Awards & Nominations

Tony Awards
  • 1982 Best Lead Actress in a Musical (Dreamgirls), Winner
Drama Desk Awards
  • 1982 Best Lead Actress in a Musical (Dreamgirls), Winner
  • 1981 Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Your Arms Too Short To Box With God)
Theatre Awards
  • 1982 Outstanding Broadway Debut (Dreamgirls), Winner
Time Magazine
  • Performer of the decade
NAACP
  • Image award
Grammy Awards
  • 1985 Best Inspirational Performance, Gospel (:Come Sunday", Winner)
Preceded by
Lauren Bacall
in Woman of the Year		 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical
1982
for Dreamgirls		 Succeeded by
Natalia Makarova
in On Your Toes

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ A dream shape for the 'Dreamgirl.' - singer Jennifer Holliday | Ebony | Find Articles at BNET.com
  2. ^ A dream shape for the 'Dreamgirl.' - singer Jennifer Holliday | Ebony | Find Articles at BNET.com
  3. ^ Echeverria Jr., Steve (March 28, 2008). (The Herald Tribune) "Nightlife: The original Dreamgirl." Retrieved on April 23, 2008.
  4. ^ Nader, Juli (November 21, 2006). (Black Public Relations Wire) "Exclusive: Jennifer Holliday Says She Created Role in Dreamgirls and Doesn’t Want to Be Forgotten." Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
  5. ^ Find Articles 404 File not found
  6. ^ Find Articles 404 File not found

[edit] External links