American jazz/blues singer Billie Holiday was BOTD in 1915. Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, she was raised in Baltimore, surviving an horrendous childhood marked by poverty and sexual abuse. She moved to Harlem in 1929, where she began singing in nightclubs. Her 1935 single What a Little Moonlight Can Do became a hit, showcasing her distinctive husky voice, jazz-inspired vocal improvisations and idiosyncratic phrasing. She became one of the most popular performers of the 1930s and 40s, though her career was beset with financial problems, drug addiction, abusive relationships, jail time and police intimidation. A committed activist for Black civil rights, she became famous for performing Strange Fruit, an eerie ballad about lynching in the segregated South. The song landed her on the CIA’s watch list, who actively worked to destroy her reputation. Between various terrible marriages, she had a number of relationships with women, notably with Louise Crane and Tallulah Bankhead. She died in 1959 of liver cirrhosis, aged 44. One of the most influential performers of the 20th century, she has been portrayed onscreen by Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, by Andra Day in The United States vs Billie Holiday and by Audra McDonald in the musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.