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Her voice would not be silenced.

Overview

Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940s, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."

Top Billed Cast

  1. Cast 1

    Andra Day

    Billie Holiday

  2. Cast 1

    Trevante Rhodes

    Jimmy Fletcher

  3. Cast 1

    Garrett Hedlund

    Harry Anslinger

  4. Cast 1

    Leslie Jordan

    Reginald Lord Devine

  5. Cast 1

    Miss Lawrence

    Miss Freddy

  6. Cast 1

    Adriane Lenox

    Mrs. Fletcher

  7. Cast 1

    Natasha Lyonne

    Tallulah Bankhead

  8. Cast 1

    Rob Morgan

    Louis McKay

  9. Cast 1

    Da'Vine Joy Randolph

    Roslyn

In a scene from The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Billie (Andra Day) is about to sing “Strange Fruit” in concert, which Harry J. Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), the first commissioner of the US Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics, had forbidden her to do. Behind the audience is a row of uniformed policemen. Billie goes straight for the first verse (even though “Strange Fruit” actually features a long instrumental intro). The cops start moving toward the stage, from which Billie is promptly spirited away by her own camp. This happens after one of Anslinger’s underlings has mad...