Jennifer Holliday’s performance of the showstopper during the 1982 Tonys.
Salon has a nice piece here about Holliday’s performance during the original Broadway run of “Dreamgirls” and how That Song worked its way into the culture. Particularly into gay culture. I like what Michael Musto and Billy Zavelson have to say about why it resonated:
“That type of song has always resonated with gay audiences. It tapped into everyone’s fears of abandonment,” says Michael Musto, longtime Village Voice gossip columnist, and who used to lip-sync to Holliday’s version of the song as the finale to the sets he played with his band the Musts. “[Holliday] was acting out every degrading humiliation and every uncouth reaction we all want to do when we’re dumped but don’t — because we have to face people the next day.”
Holliday’s performance, shepherded along by Bennett’s innovative direction, also struck a chord with gay listeners because it showed the singer doing what many of them could not do: Holliday was unabashedly expressing herself. “If you were ever afraid of who you were, or were never able to fit in, you’re going to respond to that type of commitment,” says Zavelson. “Putting yourself out there 100 percent — it’s not easy to do.”
Jennifer Holliday rode that song into stardom (even recording it for an R&B album which my first college roommate played incessantly — that, and “Another Night” by Aretha Franklin. She had Guy Issues). But despite the accolades she got, she — like her character, Effie — never really crossed over into the kind of fame that her talent should have brought her.
While Holliday had a busy career after Dreamgirls, charting with the occasional R&B song, making guest appearances on TV shows like “Touched by an Angel” and “Ally McBeal,” and performing regularly at gay-themed events and fundraisers, she never again reached the heights of “And I Am Telling You.”
The first letter in response to the Salon article criticizes Holliday for being temperamental and being pigeonholed and thinking she owns the role — all that by way of saying that it was Holliday’s own fault she’s not famous, and that the only reason she got notice was because of Michael Bennett, who directed the show on Broadway.
Yeah, like we’ve never heard of a temperamental Broadway diva before. Did our letter writer not see Valley of the Dolls before? As for “owning” a role — as if anyone criticizes Merman for “owning” Mama Rose or LuPone for “owning” Eva Peron or Brando for “owning” Stanley Kowalski. Please!
The problem with Jennifer Holliday’s career is most likely the problem with Effie’s career. Namely, she’s big, she’s black, and she’s a diva. You can have some of those qualities and make it big in show business, but it’s damned difficult to do it with all three. From Frank Rich’s 1981 review of the show, in which he identifies the theme of assimilation and selling out as the dramatic engine of the play:
Perhaps inevitably the cast’s two standouts are those who play characters who do not sell out and who suffer a more redemptive form of anguish: Miss Holliday’s Effie and Cleavant Derricks, as a James Brown-like star whose career collapses as new musical fashions pass him by. Like Miss Holliday, Mr. Derricks is a charismatic singer, who conveys wounding, heartfelt innocence. When, in Act II, he rebels against his slick new Johnny Mathis-esque image by reverting to his old, untamed Apollo shenanigans during a fancy engagement, he gives ”Dreamgirls” one of its most crushing and yet heroic solo turns.
Interestingly, in the film version of Dreamgirls, the character of Effie is played by Jennifer Hudson, who I keep hearing was “famously” booted off American Idol, but I’m not entirely sure why since I don’t really watch the show (anyone?). I do, however, know enough about the show to know that Simon Cowell is intensely critical of any woman who carries the slightest bit of extra weight (regardless of talent), but doesn’t say a thing about the male contestants’ weight.
From what I’ve been hearing, Hudson sings the hell out of the song and acts the hell out of the role — which, being on film, requires a lighter touch than Broadway. What’s somewhat jarring is the idea that Hudson, who’s a great deal thinner than Holliday was in the play, would be deemed too fat for crossover success. But then, this was a film for which Beyonce Knowles, who’s refreshingly curvy, had to lose a great deal of weight. I guess what plays in the music industry doesn’t play in Hollywood (and there goes that theme of assimilation again).
The question, then, is whether Hudson will be able to parlay the critical buzz she’s getting for her performance into a sustainable career or whether she’ll be a novelty act unworthy of inclusion with the “regular” performers.