The Racism's Scene - 1972- Diana Ross as Billie Holiday

The movie, "Lady Sings the Blues", is a 1972 American biographical film about jazz singer Billie Holiday loosely based on her 1956 autobiography which, in turn, took its title from one of Holiday's most popular songs. It was nominated for five Academy Awards.
Diana Ross received an Oscar nomination ( 1973) for Best Actress in a Leading Role and a BAFTA nomination ( the British Oscar , 1974) for Best Actress in a Leading Role .
Always for the movie, "Lady Sings the Blues " , Diana Ross won an " NAACP Image Awards (1973 ) as " Best Actress " , won a Golden Globe ( 1973 ) as " Most Promising Newcomer " and a Golden Globe nomination as " Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama " .
The film was also screened at the 1973 CANNES (France ) Film Festival ( but was not entered into the main competition ) and in Venice Movie Festival ( Italy ) .
Just before the Oscars awarding ceremony, a journalist asked to Liza Minnelli who would win and she replied : "Two words, Diana Ross" !!
The film earned an estimated $9,050,000 in North American rentals in 1973 , a record at time !

In 1973, Ross' album " LADY SINGS THE BLUES ", reached the # 1 in the USA Billboard album and remained in the charts 54 weeks ! In USA, the album sold over 2 millions records and Diana Ross, in 1974, won an AMERICAN MUSIC AWARD in the category best "Album Pop / Rock " .
It was the first time that, in the American charts, a jazz / blues album reached the # 1 in the pop charts. The album, peaked at # 5 in CANADA, at # 43 in AUSTRALIA and at # 50 in UK, where the album sold over 100.000 copies and, in 1974, was certified by BPI, GOLD record.

The nominations were for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Diana Ross), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Carl Anderson, Reg Allen), Best Costume Design, Best Music, Original Song Score and Adaptation (Gil Askey) and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced .
The same year, Motown released a hugely successful soundtrack double-album of Ross' recordings of Billie Holiday songs from the film, also titled Lady Sings the Blues.
Vincent Canby of The New York Times described Ross as "an actress of exceptional beauty and wit, who is very much involved in trying to make a bad movie work ... her only apparent limitations are those imposed on her by a screenplay and direction seemingly designed to turn a legitimate legend into a whopper of a cliché."
Variety wrote that "for the bulk of general audiences, the film serves as a very good screen debut vehicle for Diana Ross, supported strongly by excellent casting, handsome '30s physical values, and a script which is far better in dialog than structure."
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing that Ross had given "one of the great performances of 1972" and observing that the film "has most of the clichés we expect—but do we really mind clichés in a movie like this? I don't think so."
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune also awarded three out of four stars, writing, "The fact that 'Lady Sings the Blues' is a failure as a biography of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday doesn't mean it can't be an entertaining movie. And it is just that—entertaining — because of an old fashioned grand dame performance by Diana Ross, late of the pop-rock scene, in the title role." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Ross gave "one of the truly fine screen performances, full of power and pathos and enormously engaging and sympathetic." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote that "when the movie was over I wrote 'I love it' on my pad of paper ... Factually it's a fraud, but emotionally it delivers. It has what makes movies work for a mass audience: easy pleasure, tawdry electricity, personality—great quantities of personality." Tom Milne of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that Ross did "a remarkable pastiche job on the tone and timbre of Billie Holiday's voice, [but] misses the elegant, almost literary wit of her phrasing," and found the presentation of Holiday's life story "offensively simplistic."