From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jennifer Holliday
Background information
Birth name	Jennifer-Yvette Holliday
Born	October 19, 1960
Origin	Riverside, Texas, USA
Genre(s)	R&B/Soul music, Pop, House, Dance, Gospel
Occupation(s)	Singer, actress
Instrument(s)	Vocals
Years active	1980– 1996
Label(s)	Geffen (1982-1990), Arista (1990-1996)

Jennifer Holliday (born Jennifer-Yvette Holliday on October 19, 1960 in Riverside, Texas) is an 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 1 Career 1.1 Broadway actress 1.2 Recording artist 1.3 Television Appearances 2 Personal 3 Aftermath of Dreamgirls Movie 4 Trivia 5 Discography 5.1 Singles 5.2 Selected Albums 6 Awards & Nominations 7 See also 8 External links

Holliday landed her first big role on Broadway in 1979. At age 17, 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 joined the show in December 1981 and remained with the show for nearly four years. 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.

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, 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 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.

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.

Popular with LGBT events and fundraisers, the Atlantic Entertainment Group produced and promoted many Jennifer Holliday events for several years; with their "Director of Live Talent", Scott Sherman, acting as both Agent and Road Manager^[3] she went on a series of mini tours, one night only performances, LGBT pride appearances and special fund raising events. Her fans are patiently waiting for her to release new singles and albums once she can strike a deal with a label willing to sign her.

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.

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".^[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." To stabilize her emotions and help her cope with the loss of her mother and an ugly divorce, Holliday took her doctor's advice and decided to go back on the antidepressants that had been prescribed for her once before.^[5] She currently resides in Manhattan, New York.

The film version of "Dreamgirls" was released in December of 2006, starring Beyoncé Knowles, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Anika Noni Rose and Jennifer Hudson in Holliday's role of Effie. The movie received rave reviews, especially for Hudson's performance. The film went on to receive 8 Academy Award nominations, and Hudson won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Much has been reported about Holliday's displeasure with the film version of the stage classic, but Holliday wants to wish Hudson, whom she has never met, good luck. "I'm proud of what Jennifer represents; her Effie stands on its own," says Holliday, who will be watching the telecast from inside the Roosevelt. "If I say her performance wasn't good, then I'm not good, because they were the same. She's going to win an Oscar, and all three of us — Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Holliday and Effie — will be up there when she wins." But Holliday isn't exactly crying tears over Dreamgirls' omission from the best-picture race. She says: "All I like about the movie is that it was made. Over 20 years they've been trying to make this, and I think this movie lost the heart and soul of it." Holliday denies widespread reports that she hoped to play Effie in the film. "I wanted a cameo," she clarifies. "Out of respect, usually someone from the original has a spot in the remake unless they're, like, dead or something. Chita Rivera was in (the big-screen) Chicago, and Ricki Lake is going to be in (the big-screen remake of) Hairspray. There were plenty of little parts all of us could have played. I would have liked to have been Deena's mother."

A February 22, 2007 article in USA Today, recounts the Jennifer Holliday/Dreamgirls movie "dust up" as follows: "Jennifer Holliday — winner of a 1982 Tony Award and 1983 Grammy for playing Hudson's Dreamgirl role, Effie White, in the original Broadway production — has been invited to appear on E!'s pre-Oscar telecast to sing And I Am Telling You (I'm Not Going) on the hotel's roof at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. And if it rains? "Well, then I'll be singing from a window," Holliday says with a chuckle. "This all started out so negatively," Holliday says from her Harlem home. "But now I feel like Cinderella."

• Nell Carter was originally slated to play Effie White. When Carter left after the initial workshop to work in television in Los Angeles, Bennett chose Holliday for the role.
• Holliday's performance and style onstage was spoofed in Off Broadway's "Forbidden Broadway" in a segment called "Screamgirls".

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

Year	Album	US Peak Position
1983	Feel My Soul	#31 The Billboard 200, #6 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
1985	Say You Love Me	#110 The Billboard 200, #34 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
1987	Get Close to My Love	# N/A The Billboard 200, # N/A Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
1991	I'm On Your Side	#184 The Billboard 200, #29 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
1995	On & On	#10 Top Gospel Albums
1996	The Best of Jennifer Holliday	#50 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
2000	20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Jennifer Holliday

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

• 1982 Best Female Performance, Rhythm & Blues ("And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Dreamgirls), Winner

• 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

• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart

• Performance of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from the 1982 Tony Awards
• Reference 1:Essence June 1999: Jennifer Holliday On Her 2 Failed Marriages
• Reference 2: Nov 1991 Ebony Magazine: Jennifer Holliday About Her Weight Loss
• Reference 3: USA Today February 22, 2007: Jennifer Holliday On the "Dreamgirls" Movie and Jennifer Hudson

http://www.jenniferhollidaythedreamgirl.com