Jennifer-Yvette Holliday
(born October 19, 1960, Riverside, Texas) is a two-time Grammy Award-winning African-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."
|
JENNIFER HOLLIDAY TICKETS
|
Biography
Career
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 Arm's 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. In 1998 Holliday was featured on the album "My Favorite Broadway Ladies" notice as one of "The Queens Of Broadway"
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.
Holliday's later R&B 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 dance version of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" would peak at #6 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 2001.
Popular with LGBT events and fundraisers, acknowledged on her album On and On, the Atlantic Entertainment Groups Director of live Talent Scott Sherman produced and promoted many Jennifer Holliday events for several years acting as both Agent and Road Manager, Holliday went on a series of special tours and promotions, one night only performances, LGBT pride appearances and special fund raising events. Her fans are patiently waiting for her to release new singles, perhaps a full length Club/Dance style album once she gets resigned to another label.
In the 1990s, Holliday lost a substantial amount of weight and talked about her health struggles with depression during promotional interviews.
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.
[2]
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, after she was not offered a
cameo role in the film (one of the other original
Dreamgirls
cast members,
Loretta Devine, was eventually given a cameo in the film version).
[3]
Recently Jennifer can be seen in a
Youtube video singing a duet with
Oscar award winner
Jennifer Hudson.the two did a live duet at Hudson's concert on
April 16 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDFHXjJ7SU
Personal
Holliday 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".
[4]
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."
She currently resides in Manhattan, New York.
Holliday received a Doctor of Music
honoris causa
from
Berklee College of Music, Boston in 2000. In 2001 she was presenter for the 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.
Discography
Albums
- 1983 Feel My Soul
#31 U.S. Billboard 200, #6 U.S. Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
- 1985 Say You Love Me
#110 U.S., #34 U.S. R&B
- 1987 Get Close to My Love
- 1991 I'm On Your Side
#184 U.S., #29 U.S. R&B
- 1995 On & On
#10 U.S. Top Gospel Albums
- 1996 The Best of Jennifer Holliday
#50 U.S.
- 2000 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Jennifer Holliday
- 2006 Duet with Najiyah - Through The Storm
Singles
| Year
| Single
| Peak chart positions
| Album
|
| U.S. R&B
| U.S. Hot 100
| U.S. Dance
| UK
|
| 1982
| "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"
| 1
| 22
| —
| 32
| Dreamgirls
|
| "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
| 82
| 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
|
Awards and nominations
;Awards
- 1982 Theatre Awards Outstanding Broadway Debut – Dreamgirls
- 1982 Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical – Dreamgirls
- 1982 Drama Desk Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical – Dreamgirls
- 1983 Grammy Award Best Female Performance, Rhythm & Blues – "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Dreamgirls
- 1985 Grammy Award for Best Inspirational Performance, Gospel – "Come Sunday"
;Nominations
- 1981 Drama Desk Award or Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical – Your Arms Too Short to Box with God
- 1983 Grammy Award Best New Artist
|-
| colspan="3" style="background: #FFF179;" |Awards and achievements}}
|- style="text-align: center;"
|- style="text-align:center;"
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan="1"|Preceded by
Lena Horne
in
Lena Horne, The Lady and Her Music
|width="40%" style="text-align: center;" rowspan="1"|
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical
1981-1982
for
Dreamgirls
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan="1"| Succeeded by
|-