MNTB Class Pic – Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday in her dressing room and her dog ‘Mister’ in NYC 1946.
Some facts about Holiday
*Birth name is Eleanora Fagan Gough
*Holiday said about her childhood “I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.”
*Holiday was sent to a facility for troubled girls at 9 years old.
*After moving in with her mom in Harlem N.Y. before she was a teen, she was arrested for prostitution.
*She changed her name to Billie Holiday as an appreciation to film star Billie Dove.