Browse content similar to Queens of Heartache. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
# Good morning, heartache | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
# You old gloomy sight... # | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
They have voices that make you weep, songs of heartbreak and betrayal, | 0:00:08 | 0:00:13 | |
lives that seem to mirror their music and deaths that came too soon and made myths of them all. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:20 | |
Yet their voices triumph over tragedy. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
# Take another little piece of my heart... # | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
They are icons of the 20th century. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
Queens of heartache. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:30 | |
# Take another little bit of my heart, yeah, yeah, yeah... # | 0:00:30 | 0:00:35 | |
Janis Joplin, the wild queen. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
She was joy-bringer | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
and ecstasy, although, you know, she sang about doom. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
# Somewhere over... # | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
Judy Garland, the showbiz queen. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:50 | |
She had a lot of yearning in her voice. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:52 | |
She was always striving for happiness and never could seem to find it. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
Maria Callas, drama queen. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
I think her life was at times as tragic as the roles she played. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:07 | |
You could absolutely hear the heartache in her voice. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:11 | |
# God bless the child that's got his own... # | 0:01:11 | 0:01:15 | |
Billie Holiday, troubled queen. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:17 | |
There is a pining, that yearning. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
Every word she says make you go like "Ah, if I can only give it to you. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:25 | |
"What is it you want?" | 0:01:25 | 0:01:26 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
And Edith Piaf, the urchin queen. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
Alone in the spotlight she stood small but strong, | 0:01:34 | 0:01:38 | |
# Non! Rien de rien... # | 0:01:38 | 0:01:43 | |
She became both the voice of her nation and of everyone who's ever made a mistake. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
It was only feeling. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:52 | |
Only emotion. Only truth. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:55 | |
# Ni le mal tout ca m'est bien egal! | 0:01:55 | 0:02:00 | |
# Non! Rien de rien... # | 0:02:00 | 0:02:05 | |
I remember exactly where I was when I first heard her. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
I just thought she had such a stunning voice, very rich. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:13 | |
And there was a pure emotion in her singing. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:15 | |
# ..oublie, je me fous du passe... # | 0:02:15 | 0:02:21 | |
Those who have seen Piaf on stage, they have never forgotten that. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:26 | |
She was touching the public and she wanted to touch the public. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:32 | |
# Non! Rien de rien... # | 0:02:32 | 0:02:35 | |
TRANSLATION: It was instinctive, it was in her. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
It came from her heart, all of her. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
# Car ma vie | 0:02:42 | 0:02:44 | |
# Car me joies | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
# Aujourd'hui | 0:02:47 | 0:02:49 | |
# Ca commence avec toi.. # | 0:02:49 | 0:02:55 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
Edith Piaf was born in a poor part of Paris during the First World War. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:04 | |
She's said to have been born on these steps. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
Her mother abandoned her when she was little. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
TRANSLATION: She had a lot of talent too. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
She had a magnificent voice, apparently, but all the vices. | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
She died of drugs, an overdose. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:23 | |
Edith then lived with her grandparents in a brothel | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
till she joined her father, an acrobat and street singer. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:30 | |
She never went to school, but started making money singing with him. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:37 | |
# ..On s'en fout | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
# Nul ne s'y accroche... # | 0:03:39 | 0:03:41 | |
At 17, she had a baby girl, who died aged two. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:46 | |
TRANSLATION: It was a mistake of youth. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
A good song if it is written well makes you feel that emotion, | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
A good song if it is written well makes you feel that emotion, | 0:03:55 | 0:03:57 | |
even if you haven't been in that specific situation. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
Someone who really has gone through the hardships | 0:04:00 | 0:04:03 | |
like Edith Piaf, she's really singing from the heart. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
# Je revoie la ville en fete et en elire | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
# Suffoquant sous le soleil et sous la joie... # | 0:04:09 | 0:04:12 | |
Edith was 19 when she was discovered singing on a street corner. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:16 | |
Her career on the music hall stage took off. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:20 | |
Her fame as a singer grew in occupied France. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
Later she would become a symbol of French survival if not active resistance - | 0:04:25 | 0:04:30 | |
the voice of the people. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:31 | |
TRANSLATION: She was a symbol of the strength of a country. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:36 | |
She was the soul of her people called France. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:42 | |
# C'est merveilleux | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
# La vie peinte en bleu | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
# Un grand coup de soleil... # | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
In films, she usually played herself, an urchin who becomes a star. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:56 | |
Straight after the war she had an affair with Yves Montand. | 0:04:56 | 0:05:00 | |
Her fame was spreading round the world. | 0:05:01 | 0:05:05 | |
Charles Aznavour lived in her very Bohemian house. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
It was a crazy house. Not too much furnitures, | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
good cook - | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
important, and crazy moments. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
You have to realise it was not a long time after the war | 0:05:21 | 0:05:26 | |
and we used to enjoy freedom. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
We were thinking about songs and music | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
and going around Paris night clubs till three or four in the morning. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:37 | |
# Quand il me prend dans ses bras | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
# Il me parle tout bas | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
# Je vois la vie en rose... # | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
She had a great appetite for everything. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:51 | |
She was what we call in French a 'monstre sacre', a sacred monster. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:52 | |
She was what we call in French a 'monstre sacre', a sacred monster. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:56 | |
It's a compliment. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:00 | |
She used to eat like a monster, love like a monster and drink like a monster. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:05 | |
She was what we call bigger than life. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
She was really bigger than life. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
On stage she was mesmerising. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:15 | |
If you've ever sung on the street, you gain a very particular sort | 0:06:15 | 0:06:19 | |
of knowledge which is about grabbing people. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:21 | |
It's about getting them right in. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:24 | |
She had that. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:25 | |
She carries that absolutely into her concert career. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:32 | |
# Quand y reviendra de la guerre | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
# Ils prendront une maison | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
# Elle sera la caissiere Et lui, sera le patron... # | 0:06:37 | 0:06:42 | |
TRANSLATION: Basically she made love to the public. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:46 | |
She made love with songs. She always believed in a song. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
It wasn't just music, it meant something. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:53 | |
# ..la java Qu'elle fredonne tout bas | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
# Elle revoit son accordeoniste | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
# Et ses yeux amoureux | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
# Suivent le jeu nerveux | 0:07:00 | 0:07:02 | |
# Et les doigts secs et longs de l'artiste... # | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
Even when she's singing something which is about | 0:07:05 | 0:07:06 | |
Even when she's singing something which is about | 0:07:07 | 0:07:07 | |
how dreadful life can be, there's a strength and resilience in her... | 0:07:07 | 0:07:08 | |
how dreadful life can be, there's a strength and resilience in her... | 0:07:09 | 0:07:13 | |
all the time. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
# Arretez la musique! # | 0:07:16 | 0:07:19 | |
She believed, she felt it was real. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
But it was also an act. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
She knew what worked. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
She found out very fast that her way was the tragic songs. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:35 | |
She used to say you have to find me something, a new death, a new way to die. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:42 | |
TRANSLATION: She was very perfectionist, very professional. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
It was me doing the lights. The dark was very important to her. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
It had to be timed just right, | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
so that it coincided precisely with a gesture or a note. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:06 | |
She used to have one gesture a song, not two. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:13 | |
But that gesture was the right one. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
# ..Foule qui nous traine, nous entraine | 0:08:16 | 0:08:21 | |
# Et nous eloigne | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
# L'un de l'autre je lutte et je me debats... # | 0:08:23 | 0:08:27 | |
Once, Piaf went on stage drunk and was booed off. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
The public was against her. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:33 | |
She sang two hours and she came out with a standing ovation. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:39 | |
And I had that... | 0:08:39 | 0:08:42 | |
Means you know I made it. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:46 | |
As with the audience, so with her loves. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
Aznavour remembers introducing her to one. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
She turned to me and... | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
I knew... | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
she was in love, already. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
It never lasted long, about two years. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
It was always before a new opening in Paris, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
but she was sincere. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:14 | |
Each time she was totally sincere. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
The older she got, the younger they got, like Georges Moustakis, 18 years her junior. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:26 | |
The older she got, the younger they got, like Georges Moustakis, 18 years her junior. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:27 | |
The way I felt her was somebody very completely free. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:32 | |
She didn't care about nothing. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
If she wanted something, if she believed in something, | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
she would do it like an adolescent. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:42 | |
She was passionate in every second of her life. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:48 | |
People were saying her days on stage were numbered. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:59 | |
She was ill and exhausted from a lifetime of excesses, performing, drinking, car crashes, morphine. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:06 | |
Charles Dumont had written a song for her. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
TRANSLATION: She didn't want to see Charles Dumont, she hated him. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
He'd sent other songs she didn't like at all. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:18 | |
One day, reluctantly, she let him in. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:22 | |
TRANSLATION: I was in a rage. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
I hit the piano hard shouting, "No, nothing, nothing." I regret nothing. | 0:10:24 | 0:10:29 | |
And she said, "Young man, | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
"you've made a song there that will be heard all over the world." | 0:10:32 | 0:10:39 | |
# Non! Rien de rien | 0:10:41 | 0:10:45 | |
# Non! Je ne regrette rien | 0:10:45 | 0:10:50 | |
# Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait... # | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
There's a sense of triumph. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
She's like a phoenix coming out of the ashes in that song. I just love it. | 0:10:56 | 0:11:01 | |
TRANSLATION: When she said those words 'I regret nothing,' | 0:11:07 | 0:11:12 | |
she summed up her life because she was a completely straight woman. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:16 | |
She was a block of granite. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:20 | |
In 1962, she married one of her boys and a year later, she died. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:31 | |
She was only 47. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
Love was not her big subject. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:36 | |
It was her reason of living. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:39 | |
She was... | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
something quite extraordinary | 0:11:44 | 0:11:45 | |
something quite extraordinary | 0:11:45 | 0:11:45 | |
something quite extraordinary | 0:11:46 | 0:11:47 | |
and we have never replaced Piaf. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
Piaf's exultant energy brought vast crowds to their feet. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
But in the USA, a cooler queen was born in the same year as Piaf. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
Where one became the voice of liberated France, the other was defiant but never triumphant. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:08 | |
I give you, Billie Holiday. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
I give you, Billie Holiday. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:11 | |
The trouble queen was more melancholy, altogether more intimate. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:19 | |
# My man don't love me | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
# He treats me oh so mean... # | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
You can't sound like that | 0:12:24 | 0:12:26 | |
without having gone through something. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
I really believe that. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
# My man don't love me, he treats me awful mean | 0:12:31 | 0:12:37 | |
# It was a growl | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
# It was haunting. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
# He's the lowest man | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
# That I've ever seen... # | 0:12:44 | 0:12:49 | |
You always knew that it was Lady. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:55 | |
Lady sang with authority and emotion. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
# Love is just like a faucet... # | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
It was really something from another world. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:02 | |
It was really something from another world. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
It's like being confided in by someone. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
# Love is just like a faucet... # | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
She did say to me whatever you do when you sing, tell the truth. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:20 | |
Tell the truth, speak the truth. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
# Some times when you think it's on, baby | 0:13:23 | 0:13:27 | |
# It has turned off and gone... # | 0:13:27 | 0:13:33 | |
# Them that's got, shall get | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
# Them that's not, shall lose... # | 0:13:40 | 0:13:44 | |
Billie 's mother was an occasional prostitute, her father a musician who drifted in and out of her life. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:50 | |
Her dad was 17 when she was born. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:51 | |
Her dad was 17 when she was born. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:53 | |
She had no money, no security, | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
molested early in life, sexually exploited. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:01 | |
It's amazing she survived. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
# God bless the child that's got his own... # | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
She sang like she'd been through the mill... | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
..and she had in many ways. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
I think she never really got to experience a childhood. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:20 | |
There seemed to be a yearning that never got fulfilled. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:21 | |
There seemed to be a yearning that never got fulfilled. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
When you're a performer at least you have a way to release that. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:30 | |
# Please keep me in your dreams | 0:14:30 | 0:14:35 | |
# In your sweet dreams, let me... # | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
And Billie became a performer, starting off in small bars and clubs in Harlem. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
She used to be a waitress and sing for tips. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
So I guess a lot of her voice was kind of directed to the people just in front of her. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:50 | |
It feels like she's singing just to you. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
# Please keep me in your dreams... # | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
As soon as she started singing in clubs she didn't like doing something the same way. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
She has this elastic timing where she'll go either side of the beat. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:08 | |
Utterly made her Billie Holiday right from the start. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
# You don't have to have a hanker to be a broker or banker... # | 0:15:15 | 0:15:19 | |
Jazz musicians loved her. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:21 | |
She played a victim in a jazz film and toured with a white band. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:25 | |
It wasn't easy on the road for a black singer. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
They were selling her records, her name was on the marquee but | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
she had to enter through the back of the hotel because they wouldn't let her come through the front. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:35 | |
# She sets the world on fire | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
# Just wished she'd make it proper | 0:15:38 | 0:15:40 | |
# To call my old man, Papa... # | 0:15:40 | 0:15:43 | |
She didn't take it lying down. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
Once a sailor came into a bar she was in and asked the bartender when he started serving nigger bitches. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:51 | |
She smashed his face with her glass. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:55 | |
Her reputation was what they call 'a salty broad.' | 0:15:55 | 0:15:59 | |
She would tell you in a minute | 0:15:59 | 0:16:02 | |
what she thought about this, that or the other. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
# Southern trees | 0:16:04 | 0:16:05 | |
# Southern trees | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
# Bear strange fruit... # | 0:16:09 | 0:16:14 | |
In 1939 she recorded a song that changed her career. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:18 | |
# Blood on the leaves | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
# And blood at the root... # | 0:16:21 | 0:16:25 | |
That was deeply personal... | 0:16:25 | 0:16:27 | |
# Black bodies swinging... # | 0:16:27 | 0:16:29 | |
..because it was her race, her people that this had been done to. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
It was such a graphic, graphic song. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:38 | |
# ..from love poplar trees. # | 0:16:38 | 0:16:43 | |
It was 20 years before the civil rights movement. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
The fact that she has the bravery to sing a song about people being tortured and killed is | 0:16:47 | 0:16:54 | |
just incredible. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:55 | |
It made her a public figure in a way other | 0:16:55 | 0:17:00 | |
singers weren't, popular with white liberals as well as other blacks. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
# Cry... # | 0:17:06 | 0:17:11 | |
And a target for the police. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
She had problems with the police cos they were after her all the time. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:19 | |
They tried to find her using drugs. | 0:17:19 | 0:17:22 | |
Every city she went to, the first thing they did was, | 0:17:22 | 0:17:24 | |
the police would come in and search her room. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
In 1947 they got her. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
She was jailed for eight months. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:34 | |
As a child she'd been in prison. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:36 | |
She never escaped her past. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
She had been groomed for drugdom | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
from the time she was very young. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:45 | |
Of course she was a pimp's dream. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
She was making money, | 0:17:50 | 0:17:52 | |
she was an icon... | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
They got a hold of her and they turned her on to heroin. | 0:17:56 | 0:18:00 | |
She didn't choose the greatest company, but there you go. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
A criminal conviction meant she couldn't play in clubs in New York. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
But there was no law against playing the prestigious Carnegie Hall. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:20 | |
People loved it so much so we had to repeat that concert a few weeks later. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:26 | |
And at that time there were people seated on the stage. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:30 | |
I had to lift my bass up over the crowd. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:33 | |
Billie had triumphed, but getting work wasn't the only problem... | 0:18:33 | 0:18:38 | |
# It cost me a lot | 0:18:40 | 0:18:43 | |
# But there's one thing that I've got | 0:18:43 | 0:18:46 | |
# It's my man... # | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
The men she hung around with took what she did earn. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
And they were violent, like one of her boyfriends and managers. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:55 | |
He was a pimp and a hustler and that was his trade. | 0:18:55 | 0:19:00 | |
They'd have a fight before the show and we had to tape up her ribs cos she was having trouble breathing. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:10 | |
# He isn't true | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
# He beats me too... # | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
We went ahead and played the job that night and that was it. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
# What can I do? # | 0:19:20 | 0:19:25 | |
Punches, beatings, | 0:19:25 | 0:19:29 | |
these guys would hit you over the head with a bottle. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:33 | |
I knew that Lady... | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
liked ladies... | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
Of course she would have been better off. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
# Hush now, don't explain... # | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
Billie had affairs with women and men and married three times. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:51 | |
# Just say you'll remain... # | 0:19:51 | 0:19:54 | |
It was a constant search for a father figure. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:58 | |
It was a constant search for a father figure. | 0:19:58 | 0:19:59 | |
To be loved and protected and looked after, it was a constant search. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:03 | |
# You're my joy and pain... # | 0:20:03 | 0:20:08 | |
She brought a world weariness and poignancy to jazz singing. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
# Skip that | 0:20:11 | 0:20:14 | |
# Lipstick, don't explain. # | 0:20:14 | 0:20:19 | |
When she sang you knew exactly what the song was about, | 0:20:19 | 0:20:23 | |
what the music was about and what she was about. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
# You know that I love you | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
# And what love endures | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
# All my thoughts of you... # | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
She read a lyric like she lived it and some instances it was exactly like she lived it. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:41 | |
# Cry to hear folks chatter... # | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
It was just very calm and relating the lyric in such a way that | 0:20:44 | 0:20:50 | |
you felt a part of it. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
# ..when you're with me, sweet. # | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
One thing Lady always wanted and never had was a child. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
Luckily, one of her ladies did. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
Holiday was like another mother to me. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:07 | |
Almost the instant I was born my mom said that Holiday took me and proceeded to breast feed me | 0:21:07 | 0:21:12 | |
Almost the instant I was born my mom said that Holiday took me and proceeded to breast feed me | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
even though she had no milk | 0:21:15 | 0:21:18 | |
and so she made up for that by smoking a copious amount of marijuana | 0:21:18 | 0:21:23 | |
and as a result I ate a lot and slept a lot. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:28 | |
I could hear them laughing and smoking. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
She loved a good time | 0:21:33 | 0:21:36 | |
and she loved to laugh. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
This was one of her last performances. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
# Please don't talk about me when I'm gone | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
# No, our friendship ceases from now on... # | 0:21:55 | 0:22:01 | |
A lot of people, | 0:22:01 | 0:22:02 | |
had just thrown their friendship away with her because of the drugs and the notoriety. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:09 | |
# Just don't talk at all | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
# That's my advice. # | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
Billie died in hospital, aged just 44. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
She was arrested for heroin possession on her deathbed. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:27 | |
After you're dead and gone, then you're the greatest thing that ever happened. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
But at the time you're doing it, you get a lot of criticism. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:35 | |
It's the system. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
# We're parting You go your way, I'll go mine... # | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
People think, "Oh, it was such a tragic life." | 0:22:41 | 0:22:45 | |
Therefore this is how she sings, this is her voice. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
Instead of appreciating the actual genius of her voice. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:52 | |
Lots of people have desperately sad things happen to them... | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
..but they aren't able to communicate that in a medium you would call art. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:02 | |
That's what's incredible about Billie Holiday. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:07 | |
Please don't talk about me when I'm gone... | 0:23:07 | 0:23:18 | |
Billie became a true icon only after her death. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
The next queen was a legend in her own lifetime, but had all the problems a '50s woman could have. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:27 | |
The next queen was a legend in her own lifetime, but had all the problems a '50s woman could have. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:27 | |
And then some. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:31 | |
# Somewhere over the rainbow... # | 0:23:31 | 0:23:36 | |
Judy Garland, showbiz queen. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
# Way up high | 0:23:39 | 0:23:41 | |
# There's a land that I heard of | 0:23:42 | 0:23:47 | |
# Once in a lullaby... # | 0:23:47 | 0:23:51 | |
It is a song about lost childhood more than anything | 0:23:52 | 0:23:55 | |
and this place that you can't really get back to. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
It's a really sad song and it shouldn't be. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:02 | |
She had such a pure voice, a very crystal clear one | 0:24:04 | 0:24:08 | |
and an innocence in the voice. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
Judy Garland's iconic status for the gay community, it's all connected to the Wizard Of Oz, going | 0:24:12 | 0:24:18 | |
some place beautiful where you won't be discriminated against, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
accepted for who you are. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:23 | |
People lived their life through Judy. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:28 | |
Much of her audience wanted to be Judy Garland. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
She could make you like a song that you didn't like. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:39 | |
That poor baby went through a lot too. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:42 | |
Why oh why can't I...? | 0:24:44 | 0:24:50 | |
She was so at peace and at home when she sang. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:56 | |
It was all the other things that caused her chaos. | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
Judy Garland started life on the stage and never really left it. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:09 | |
We were about 12 years old when we first met. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
She was singing, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
# "I just adore the boy next door # | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
and all the great songs that they had at the time. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
Maybe Cupid is there! | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
She came to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:29 | |
We became great friends. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:32 | |
Her fresh face and big voice instantly made her a hit. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
'There is a new star in the heavens. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:37 | |
'Young, fresh, beautiful and you discovered her.' | 0:25:37 | 0:25:41 | |
This'll be a world record. I'm gonna put on my tuxedo and opera hat! | 0:25:41 | 0:25:45 | |
'It was a conveyor belt system. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
'We made seven pictures a year.' | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
You didn't read the scripts. They told you what you were going to do. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:54 | |
And so we did it. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:55 | |
'Each new picture brought Judy Garland closer to stardom.' | 0:25:55 | 0:25:59 | |
In those days you worked six days a week | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
and Mickey Rooney and I would work sometimes 72 hours at a time. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:07 | |
Neither one of us grew very tall. They worked us so hard we became munchkins. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:12 | |
# He's sweet just like chocolate candy... # | 0:26:12 | 0:26:17 | |
They would give Judy a little bumper, a little boost. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
It started out coffee and cocoa at night. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
But then as they matured, it required more and more to stimulate and sedate, stimulate and sedate. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:31 | |
# Meet the reason I beam so | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
# Why I am happen and seem so-o-o... | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
# Delighted, excited... # | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
It can be incredibly destructive, which it was. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
# ..the beat of my heart... # | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
You could see the tornado all around this little person because of her talent. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:52 | |
'When we arrived in New York, I'll never forget, there was 40,000 people to greet us. | 0:26:56 | 0:27:02 | |
'Judy was frightened at all the crowds, when people tear your clothes and this and that.' | 0:27:02 | 0:27:08 | |
Get back, young lady, get back... | 0:27:08 | 0:27:10 | |
She told me, "Mickey, I think we oughta go home, let's go home." | 0:27:10 | 0:27:15 | |
CROWD SHOUTS | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
And I said, "Just stick around, and we'll be all right." | 0:27:18 | 0:27:23 | |
It was quite out of hand. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:28 | |
# They're writing songs of love | 0:27:30 | 0:27:36 | |
# But not for me... # | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
Judy was big box office as the girl next door. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:42 | |
People just fell so in love with her because she had this ability | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
People just fell so in love with her because she had this ability | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
to make you feel that you were her best friend and it was only you who knew her. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:54 | |
She put her audience at ease, but didn't find real life so easy. | 0:27:55 | 0:28:00 | |
I played her sister in a film. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:03 | |
She did this very emotional scene of crying and she didn't say hello to anybody. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:07 | |
She just got up and walked away after it was over and I thought, "Wow that's something." | 0:28:07 | 0:28:14 | |
But her voice was full of feeling. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
# I guess he's not | 0:28:17 | 0:28:24 | |
# For me-e-e... # | 0:28:24 | 0:28:29 | |
You can hear the vulnerability in it. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:31 | |
Heartache singers are about taking a song, | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
take inside themselves and then when it comes back out it's something different. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:40 | |
You have a transformative power over songs. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:43 | |
And I think Judy Garland definitely had that. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:46 | |
By 1950, aged 28, Judy had had two failed marriages, | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
a nervous breakdown and several attempted suicides. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:56 | |
The studio decided to get rid of her. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
They fired her because she was difficult. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:01 | |
They fired her because she'd sometimes get late and | 0:29:01 | 0:29:03 | |
sometimes she'd use some artificial stimulants | 0:29:03 | 0:29:08 | |
and perhaps a little adult beverage and she was a handful. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:13 | |
She re-invented herself as a stage performer. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:16 | |
She made her problems part of her act. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:18 | |
It was like a contract with the audience. | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
She expressed and exaggerated their emotions and they loved her for it. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:26 | |
My mother came out there and just took the audience and said "Let's go" | 0:29:27 | 0:29:32 | |
and put her arms around them and they went with her. | 0:29:32 | 0:29:34 | |
# The road gets rougher | 0:29:34 | 0:29:38 | |
# It's lonelier and tougher | 0:29:38 | 0:29:42 | |
# With hope you burn up | 0:29:42 | 0:29:46 | |
# Tomorrow, he might turn up... # | 0:29:46 | 0:29:49 | |
It was a complete roller coaster because she could make you weep. | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
She brought you up onto your feet with these unbelievable soaring notes. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:56 | |
She brought you up onto your feet with these unbelievable soaring notes. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
# Da-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-y | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
# Ever since this world began | 0:30:03 | 0:30:11 | |
# There is nothing sadder than | 0:30:11 | 0:30:16 | |
# A one man woman | 0:30:19 | 0:30:25 | |
# Looking for a man that got | 0:30:25 | 0:30:34 | |
# Away. # | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
She'd hit that stage like a marine. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:45 | |
She wanted to pulverise an audience. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:48 | |
Of course, the audience loved everything she sang | 0:30:48 | 0:30:51 | |
and knew every note and they just couldn't get enough of her. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:55 | |
The publicity for her films played up the parallels with her own life and career. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:04 | |
'Yes, a star is born and you'll know it when you | 0:31:05 | 0:31:10 | |
'experience the joy and jubilation as Judy Garland as the star. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:14 | |
'A story that only life itself could have inspired.' | 0:31:14 | 0:31:19 | |
It was getting hard to tell what was stage heartache and what was real. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:23 | |
'From theatre to theatre... | 0:31:23 | 0:31:24 | |
'From one lonely stage to another, yearning for the warmth no spotlight could give her.' | 0:31:24 | 0:31:30 | |
# No more that all time thrill | 0:31:30 | 0:31:36 | |
F# or you've been through the mill... | 0:31:36 | 0:31:42 | |
People thought they knew about my mother, OK. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:47 | |
What she hated was the fact when people thought that she was this tragic figure. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:51 | |
She had tragedies in her life but she wasn't tragic. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:55 | |
She was funny and gifted and the people who really knew her will tell you that. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:59 | |
The humour was the surprise, always, her love of jokes. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
JUDY GARLAND: The next one is a sort of striptease tempo. | 0:32:03 | 0:32:06 | |
We don't do it, we just talk about it. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
'And her stories. She was one of the great story tellers...' | 0:32:09 | 0:32:13 | |
No, not in Carnegie Hall, it wouldn't look right! | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
'She was a very bawdy lady...' | 0:32:16 | 0:32:18 | |
If somebody moans, do you moan? | 0:32:18 | 0:32:20 | |
A little bit like living in a volcano, but we had fun. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:25 | |
Her weight yo-yoed, her marriages and her health crumbled. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
Her pact with the audience was feeding them but destroying her. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:36 | |
By the time she was through the audience was crazy and she was really, really up. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:40 | |
And then everybody went home and left her. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
And here she was adrift. Here she was alone. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:47 | |
She couldn't come down off of what had to be one of the highest of highs. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:54 | |
She lost a lot of her friends... | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
They said, "I don't wanna be bothered." | 0:33:00 | 0:33:02 | |
That can be the saddest thing in the world. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:06 | |
# Somewhere over the rainbow... # | 0:33:06 | 0:33:12 | |
On stage she was now almost like a sacrifice, with her daughter Liza holding her hand. | 0:33:12 | 0:33:18 | |
Come on now, sing along! | 0:33:18 | 0:33:19 | |
'Her audience wanted to push her closer to the edge. | 0:33:19 | 0:33:23 | |
'They wanted to see at what point she would just collapse or break.' | 0:33:25 | 0:33:29 | |
# Somewhere over the rainbow... # | 0:33:29 | 0:33:36 | |
Keep singing! | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
I saw the London Palladium show | 0:33:38 | 0:33:40 | |
where Judy Garland is clearly not in control. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:44 | |
People watched it happen in a kind of Christians and lions way. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:46 | |
People watched it happen in a kind of Christians and lions way. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
# Oh why | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
# Can't | 0:33:53 | 0:33:55 | |
# I... # | 0:33:55 | 0:34:02 | |
In 1969 Judy Garland died of an overdose. | 0:34:02 | 0:34:07 | |
I was surprised she lasted that long, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
She'd tried to take her own life too many times. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
The whole world was sad | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
but not surprised. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:18 | |
# Somewhere over the rainbow... # | 0:34:18 | 0:34:27 | |
As a child she was lonesome. | 0:34:27 | 0:34:29 | |
I don't know whether she wanted show business as her life... | 0:34:29 | 0:34:33 | |
..but then finally she couldn't live without it. It was so addictive. | 0:34:35 | 0:34:39 | |
And that's the way show business is. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:42 | |
Judy lived her life in the spotlight. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:47 | |
She ushered in the celebrity age. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
Our next queen was always in the headlines and always lamenting it. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:58 | |
Maria Callas, the drama queen put the showbiz into opera. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:04 | |
# Casta Diva | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
# Che inargenti... # | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
Her voice was not deemed as perfect as some sopranos but is all the more moving for that. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:18 | |
For me her voice was kind of dark. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
It's almost got a weepy sort of sound to it. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:25 | |
But it's also very dramatic. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:30 | |
And it has, it kind of has a really strong element of truth in it. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:34 | |
When she was singing quietly, people wept. | 0:35:37 | 0:35:39 | |
She was able to express it from her heart, you know, | 0:35:39 | 0:35:43 | |
just straight out like that. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:45 | |
She could fill the notes with something that few singers could do. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:48 | |
The moment she began to sing I was frightened. | 0:35:56 | 0:36:00 | |
# Ah ah ah ah! # | 0:36:00 | 0:36:05 | |
I didn't know if this was something wonderful or something terrible. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:11 | |
I had never heard any sounds like that in my life. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:15 | |
Maria was born in New York to Greek immigrant parents who didn't get on. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:24 | |
Her mother soon became the classic pushy parent. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:31 | |
She was treated like an infant prodigy. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
"It is not", she said "A toy that I remember but I was made to sing and sing and sing to exhaustion." | 0:36:36 | 0:36:46 | |
Her mother was always on the lookout for competitions for Maria to win. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:52 | |
RADIO: 'What do you want to sing? Something like Madame Butterfly. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:56 | |
'Un bel di, vedremo | 0:36:56 | 0:37:02 | |
# Levarsi un fil di fumo... # | 0:37:02 | 0:37:06 | |
The little shy girl, who felt podgy, | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
didn't like it, to sort of compensate for that, she was eating more, and she became really fat. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:15 | |
Even as a child, she understood the feeling of loneliness and being almost abandoned. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:22 | |
In 1937, aged 13, Maria left New York for Greece | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
In 1937, aged 13, Maria left New York for Greece | 0:37:28 | 0:37:32 | |
with her mother and didn't see her father again for nine years. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
Maria used to say, "I didn't have a childhood. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:39 | |
"My mother didn't understand me. And my father couldn't help me." | 0:37:39 | 0:37:43 | |
At times I think her voice was really all that she had. | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
That's what drove her. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:51 | |
By 1945, she'd become a star in Greece. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
Now she had to conquer the world, which wasn't so easy. | 0:37:56 | 0:38:00 | |
She travelled, auditioned, rehearsed, gained weight...and a husband. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:05 | |
He was an Italian industrialist, who could have been her father. | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
And he was dull at home. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:11 | |
Her passion went into her singing. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:14 | |
In 1949 she was doing a German opera in Venice when the soprano in another lighter opera fell ill. | 0:38:14 | 0:38:21 | |
She was summoned to an instant audition. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
I went down... | 0:38:28 | 0:38:30 | |
and he said "Sing." | 0:38:30 | 0:38:31 | |
She was actually alternating one of Wagner's most dramatic roles | 0:38:41 | 0:38:45 | |
with one of bel canto's lightest roles. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:47 | |
All of Italy was agog talking about this incredible feat that had happened. | 0:38:47 | 0:38:54 | |
Callas had won. Now everyone wanted to hear this versatile voice with its extraordinary range. | 0:38:54 | 0:39:00 | |
Callas had won. Now everyone wanted to hear this versatile voice with its extraordinary range. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:02 | |
She didn't have what is traditionally called a beautiful voice. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:12 | |
Lots of people didn't like her voice. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
But when they heard her sing in person, the sheer drive, | 0:39:14 | 0:39:19 | |
the electricity of her performances, they were bowled over. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
CALLAS SINGS AT HIGH PITCH | 0:39:22 | 0:39:24 | |
By the 50s, Maria Callas was the most sought after opera singer in the world. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:30 | |
Helped they say by a tapeworm, she morphed into a slinky celebrity. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
The new look fascinated the public. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:38 | |
She set out to look like Audrey Hepburn and she did. | 0:39:38 | 0:39:44 | |
People didn't recognize her. | 0:39:44 | 0:39:46 | |
When she lost the weight, I think it was just another sign of her determination to be this huge star. | 0:39:46 | 0:39:53 | |
Nothing was going to stand in the way of this happening. | 0:39:53 | 0:39:57 | |
Callas reached out beyond opera. | 0:39:57 | 0:40:00 | |
Before Callas, singers used to stand on the stage and gesture with their hands. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:04 | |
And then after Callas the public weren't happy with that. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:08 | |
They wanted real acting. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:09 | |
She would become the person, that's why she was unforgettable. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:21 | |
It wasn't a question of make-believe, it was a living emotion. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:31 | |
# ..diedi fiori agli altar... # | 0:40:31 | 0:40:38 | |
What she did was almost slow motion, very contained, almost understated... | 0:40:38 | 0:40:45 | |
but what mattered was when she did do something it was so perfectly one | 0:40:45 | 0:40:50 | |
with the music and when she did make a grand gesture, when she threw those arms out, it was like the fingertips | 0:40:50 | 0:40:56 | |
went from one side of the stage to the other side of the stage, | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
it was just immense. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:01 | |
# Dol...or... # | 0:41:01 | 0:41:18 | |
Many people thought Maria WAS the women she played on stage. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:22 | |
Tosca is a famous example. | 0:41:22 | 0:41:24 | |
You know, this woman who was very short-tempered and very jealous, but very courageous. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:30 | |
And in a kind of way, that is a picture of Maria. | 0:41:30 | 0:41:33 | |
She loved playing battling heroines like Bellini's Norma. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:38 | |
'I don't say she resembles me but maybe yes in a certain way,' | 0:41:40 | 0:41:44 | |
and she's very strong and very... | 0:41:44 | 0:41:47 | |
..ferocious at times. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:50 | |
You can imagine how strong and powerful she must be to be able to dominate these people. | 0:41:50 | 0:41:55 | |
The power struggle with her mother now came to a head. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:03 | |
Maria vowed never to speak to her again and never did. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
In 1956, just as she was making her debut in New York, the row became public. | 0:42:10 | 0:42:15 | |
Maria had to fight to win back her audience. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:18 | |
These are very personal and intimate problems. | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
I would love to have a little bit of privacy on this thing. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:25 | |
This was a wound that never healed. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
A mother... there's nothing extraordinary about how wonderful she is. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:32 | |
She's got to be wonderful, otherwise don't have children. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
But if you do, don't expect anything in return. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:38 | |
That is what she's supposed to do. | 0:42:38 | 0:42:40 | |
To her great sadness, her own marriage remained childless. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:45 | |
Callas won a reputation as the world's most difficult diva. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:48 | |
NEWS: 'Ppera makes headlines with a performance that didn't happen. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:52 | |
'Soprano Maria Callas has been known to walk out before, | 0:42:52 | 0:42:56 | |
'so if you want to be sure of hearing her, don't get all dressed up, just go to a rehearsal. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
'She usually stays to the end of those.' | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
She even fell out with the New York Met. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
We started quarrelling, unvoluntarily on my part, | 0:43:07 | 0:43:11 | |
they offered me the old repertoire, that is the old Norma staging, which you all saw. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:18 | |
Which she's done, time and time again. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:21 | |
I hate the word "firing" in connection with such a distinguished artist, such as Maria Callas. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:25 | |
I prefer to say that our ways parted. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:28 | |
I suppose that made him angry. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:30 | |
I don't know. I can't explain it otherwise. | 0:43:30 | 0:43:32 | |
She said, "I am not a monster. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:39 | |
"But I can be very difficult if it's a question of art. | 0:43:39 | 0:43:44 | |
"All serious artists handle very important material. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:49 | |
"All serious artists handle very important material. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:49 | |
"For that I will always fight." | 0:43:49 | 0:43:53 | |
There's one standard for music and that is perfect musicianship. | 0:43:53 | 0:43:57 | |
Same thing with love. | 0:43:57 | 0:43:59 | |
She fell in love with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, and ended her ten-year marriage. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:07 | |
Onassis was a collector of women. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:11 | |
For nine years, they had a very intense relationship. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:15 | |
Not always happy, lots of fights. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:17 | |
He liked her because she was such a strong personality, you see. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:21 | |
They had no children and didn't marry but were always together. | 0:44:21 | 0:44:26 | |
But suddenly Onassis proposed to Jackie Kennedy, without telling Maria. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:30 | |
Miss Callas, are you going to the wedding? | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
When was the last time you saw Mr Onassis? | 0:44:34 | 0:44:37 | |
Onassis was not the only loss. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:58 | |
Callas knew that her voice was going...and knew what it had been. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
She was only a shadow of herself. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
Yet there were some moments where the miracle was present. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:12 | |
I remember once she said, "Shall we hear some music?" I knew by then, | 0:45:12 | 0:45:18 | |
what she meant, was, "Shall we hear some of my recordings?" | 0:45:18 | 0:45:22 | |
She was looking at me, expectantly, and I thought, "What can I say?" | 0:45:22 | 0:45:27 | |
After all, she was probably the greatest singer in a hundred years. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:32 | |
So I ventured with, | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
"It's marvellous singing." | 0:45:36 | 0:45:38 | |
"Marvellous? Marvellous?" she said. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:41 | |
"It isn't marvellous. It's bloody miraculous." | 0:45:41 | 0:45:44 | |
Maria died in Paris, aged 53. | 0:45:48 | 0:45:52 | |
The last two years of her life, she was lonely... | 0:45:53 | 0:45:56 | |
but she's been lonely all her life. | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
The tragedy in her life was not Onassis | 0:46:01 | 0:46:06 | |
or the curtailment of her career and all that, no, | 0:46:06 | 0:46:11 | |
two things, that she was unable to have had children | 0:46:11 | 0:46:15 | |
two things, that she was unable to have had children | 0:46:16 | 0:46:17 | |
and she never acquired | 0:46:17 | 0:46:19 | |
the love of her mother. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:21 | |
These are the tragedies | 0:46:23 | 0:46:25 | |
in Maria Callas's life. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:27 | |
Callas' voice was poised, our last queen's was wild. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:39 | |
She wanted to break free of it all. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
Janis Joplin - the wild queen. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:46 | |
# Baby | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
# Cry baby | 0:46:51 | 0:46:59 | |
# Welcome back home... # | 0:46:59 | 0:47:02 | |
She's going back to some sort of animal howl. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:05 | |
It's sort of somebody almost dispensing with language altogether. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
There's a huge amount of rage in Janis's singing, and pain. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:12 | |
# Much much more that I did... # | 0:47:12 | 0:47:16 | |
Janis when she sings is incredibly jubilant. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:20 | |
You could hear pain in there, you could hear grief, or you could hear, | 0:47:20 | 0:47:24 | |
having a really good time. | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
# That I'll always be... # | 0:47:26 | 0:47:29 | |
She would reach these extremes. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
# ..if you ever want me | 0:47:32 | 0:47:33 | |
# Come on and cry, cry, baby | 0:47:33 | 0:47:39 | |
# Cry baby! | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
"Cry baby!" | 0:47:41 | 0:47:46 | |
She must be ripping her muscles when she was singing, but. | 0:47:46 | 0:47:51 | |
she kept doing it. she kept drinking. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:53 | |
I'm sure she didn't do her three litres of water a day that you're meant to. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:58 | |
But I suppose she only made it to 27. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:01 | |
Janis started her 27 years in small town conservative Texas. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:09 | |
The part of Texas where she's from, the women all | 0:48:09 | 0:48:14 | |
kind of look like Charlie's angels, it's like a head cheerleader look. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:19 | |
Janis had a complex about her looks always from really very early on from when she was a little girl. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:20 | |
Janis had a complex about her looks always from really very early on from when she was a little girl. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:25 | |
She had a big weight problem, bad skin problem. | 0:48:25 | 0:48:30 | |
People threw things at her, not rocks but pieces of paper, | 0:48:30 | 0:48:36 | |
"You're a pig," She was simply different. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
She didn't care what anybody thought, except at the same time she did care what they thought. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:46 | |
She was very fragile. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:48 | |
She was voted the ugliest man on campus, quite famously, | 0:48:48 | 0:48:52 | |
which can't have been good for anybody's self esteem. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:55 | |
In the racially divided South, Janis had black friends. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:59 | |
She loved the music, loved it. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
They called her nigger lover. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:04 | |
Teenage Janis started to sing the blues. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:08 | |
# Gimme whiskey, gimme bourbon, give me gin... # | 0:49:08 | 0:49:12 | |
I started singing when I was about 17, | 0:49:13 | 0:49:16 | |
and I could sing... | 0:49:16 | 0:49:19 | |
it was a surprise. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:21 | |
In 1963 I couldn't stand Texas any more and I went to California... | 0:49:21 | 0:49:26 | |
it's a lot freer, you can do what you wanna do, nobody bugs you. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:32 | |
# Gimme gin | 0:49:32 | 0:49:34 | |
# It don't matter what I'm drinkin' | 0:49:35 | 0:49:39 | |
# As long as it drowns the sorrow I'm in. # | 0:49:39 | 0:49:41 | |
She knocked on the door of a music cafe. | 0:49:41 | 0:49:43 | |
There was this scruffy, dishevelled, | 0:49:43 | 0:49:48 | |
what I thought was an ugly boy at the door. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:51 | |
She didn't have a guitar, she didn't have a tambourine. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:57 | |
She had nothing. She just clapped. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:01 | |
And she sang all these slave songs and everything, but the people loved her. | 0:50:01 | 0:50:07 | |
When she sang she was beautiful. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:10 | |
# Oh Lord, won't you buy me, "a Mercedes Benz? | 0:50:10 | 0:50:15 | |
# My friends all drive Porsches, and must make amends... # | 0:50:15 | 0:50:20 | |
With me, she was always terribly sweet | 0:50:20 | 0:50:24 | |
but when we went public, she would put on this other persona which was | 0:50:24 | 0:50:31 | |
nasty and vulgar. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:35 | |
It was like... | 0:50:35 | 0:50:38 | |
another person. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:41 | |
Nobody's gonna hurt me. | 0:50:44 | 0:50:46 | |
Nobody is gonna hurt me. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:48 | |
It's quite an obvious transition for a shy person to become completely outward | 0:50:51 | 0:50:58 | |
and mental and drink too much and take too many drugs to offset that insecurity. | 0:50:58 | 0:51:04 | |
But she hides it incredibly well. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:07 | |
You just see this self assured, drunk, brilliant character | 0:51:07 | 0:51:12 | |
who absolutely was one of the boys. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:16 | |
Soon Janis was fronting one of the top bands on the scene, Big Brother the Holding Company. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:24 | |
She had affairs with women and men... | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
one with the singer of another band. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:30 | |
When I was with her, she was very exuberant... | 0:51:32 | 0:51:33 | |
When I was with her, she was very exuberant... | 0:51:33 | 0:51:36 | |
I think she was enjoying being one of the only girls | 0:51:36 | 0:51:41 | |
in a scene dominated by men. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:43 | |
She was having a great time. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:47 | |
Janis was the hottest chick in San Francisco at that time. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:52 | |
Gutsy, glowing. Our whole image of sort of recreating Eden | 0:51:54 | 0:51:59 | |
in San Francisco. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:01 | |
It was the Monterey Pop Festival that thrust Janis onto the national stage. | 0:52:01 | 0:52:07 | |
For her first set she wore jeans but when she knew the cameras were rolling, she startled everyone. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:13 | |
This was not the Janis Joplin I knew. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
She had sequins on her eyelids and she was all made up. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
And I went "Oh, my god it's Janis Joplin." | 0:52:27 | 0:52:32 | |
And she was fabulous. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:34 | |
# Just like a ball and a, and a cha-a-in! # | 0:52:34 | 0:52:43 | |
Monterey was a big turning point. | 0:52:43 | 0:52:45 | |
Monterey was a big turning point. | 0:52:45 | 0:52:45 | |
They started saying she was the greatest blues singer that had ever lived. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:56 | |
They started stroking her in a way | 0:52:56 | 0:52:59 | |
that really started driving her crazy I think. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:04 | |
Professionally it was a great thing for her, | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
but in the long run it was devastating. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:13 | |
Hitting the big time meant leaving Big Brother And The Holding Company behind. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:19 | |
From day one she knew she wanted to be a star, | 0:53:19 | 0:53:22 | |
and if we would have known that, | 0:53:22 | 0:53:24 | |
we would have been horrified, because it was very uncool in that | 0:53:24 | 0:53:28 | |
hippy counter culture for anyone to want to push themselves forward. | 0:53:28 | 0:53:32 | |
Everyone wanted to push themselves forward but it was really uncool to admit that. | 0:53:32 | 0:53:36 | |
Queens of heartache are solo singers. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:44 | |
And despite their many partners, their true love affair is with their audience. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:51 | |
# Come on, come on, come on | 0:53:51 | 0:53:54 | |
# And take it | 0:53:54 | 0:53:56 | |
# Take another piece of ... # | 0:53:56 | 0:53:58 | |
There's nothing that can really compare with that love, that's oceanic, all-encompassing. | 0:53:58 | 0:54:05 | |
The whole performance is sort of an orgasmic kind of situation. | 0:54:05 | 0:54:09 | |
# You know you got if it makes you feel good! | 0:54:09 | 0:54:13 | |
# Sing it right now! # | 0:54:13 | 0:54:15 | |
She was highly sexual. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:21 | |
And she was also that on stage. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:25 | |
But what made Janice so great | 0:54:25 | 0:54:30 | |
was the ecstatic experience. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:34 | |
# Take it, take another little piece of my heart now, baby, | 0:54:34 | 0:54:39 | |
# Break up! Break another little bit of my heart... # | 0:54:39 | 0:54:44 | |
It was like the atoms in the whole place, started | 0:54:44 | 0:54:46 | |
to vibrate, and everyone was tuned into this queen bee kind of vibe. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:52 | |
They loved everything that she did, they loved the self-destructive things that she did. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:58 | |
Some people who are entertainers don't always buy into their own | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
publicity, and their own myths, but she bought into it big time. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:05 | |
Liberated woman I think is a sort of understatement. | 0:55:05 | 0:55:10 | |
These guys would go backstage, say, "I really loved your performance. | 0:55:10 | 0:55:14 | |
She said "Take your pants off." | 0:55:14 | 0:55:16 | |
When the woman is an aggressor, it's often pretty intimidating, you know. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:23 | |
# Summer time... # | 0:55:26 | 0:55:29 | |
She could out ball the guys... but always knew she was different. | 0:55:29 | 0:55:33 | |
# Child | 0:55:33 | 0:55:36 | |
# You're living easy | 0:55:36 | 0:55:39 | |
'Women, to be in the music business, give up more than you'd ever know.' | 0:55:39 | 0:55:45 | |
'Home life, | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
'an old man, probably, you give up children and friends. | 0:55:51 | 0:55:56 | |
'You give up any constant in the world except music... | 0:55:56 | 0:56:00 | |
that's the only thing you've got, man. | 0:56:00 | 0:56:05 | |
She once told me it was very difficult being Janis Joplin. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:10 | |
Whenever people saw her in a bar or anything, she was on. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:14 | |
It was as if she was performing 18 hours a day, really. | 0:56:14 | 0:56:19 | |
In August 1970 Janis went to a reunion at her old school. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:25 | |
She wanted the approval. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:28 | |
She wanted to come back as a star | 0:56:28 | 0:56:31 | |
and have them love her, which they did not. | 0:56:31 | 0:56:34 | |
How were you different from your school mates? I don't know. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:38 | |
Why don't you ask them? | 0:56:38 | 0:56:41 | |
Was it they who made you different? | 0:56:41 | 0:56:42 | |
No. You were different in comparison to them? | 0:56:42 | 0:56:45 | |
I felt apart from them. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:49 | |
I didn't go to the high school prom. | 0:56:49 | 0:56:53 | |
You were asked, weren't you? No, I wasn't. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
I don't think they wanted to take me. | 0:56:56 | 0:57:00 | |
Two months later, Janis died of an accidental heroin overdose. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:06 | |
TV: 'On January 13th, Colombia Records released the album which Janis Joplin had been recording | 0:57:08 | 0:57:15 | |
'at the time of her death.' | 0:57:15 | 0:57:16 | |
It's the record for which she is most remembered. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
# ..rode us all the way to New Orleans... # | 0:57:22 | 0:57:26 | |
Part of the romance of the blues is that here is someone destroying | 0:57:28 | 0:57:34 | |
themselves, and at the same point, generating this incredible art. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:39 | |
It's like somebody like falling off a building, | 0:57:39 | 0:57:42 | |
shouting something to you as they're falling, which makes it | 0:57:42 | 0:57:45 | |
all the more intense and passionate. | 0:57:45 | 0:57:49 | |
# Freedom is just another word | 0:57:49 | 0:57:51 | |
# For nothing left to lose | 0:57:51 | 0:57:53 | |
# Nothing don't mean nothing, hon, if it ain't free... # | 0:57:53 | 0:57:56 | |
It's horrible in some ways because you take pleasure in listening to a song that's produced by their pain. | 0:57:56 | 0:58:02 | |
It's like they're making a sacrifice | 0:58:02 | 0:58:06 | |
but with these women, you're making something beautiful out of something terrible. | 0:58:06 | 0:58:11 | |
With their voices full of fire and fight, these women weren't just singers... | 0:58:13 | 0:58:19 | |
they were moments in history. | 0:58:19 | 0:58:21 | |
# La la la la na na na | 0:58:22 | 0:58:26 | |
# La la la la la la la la na na na | 0:58:26 | 0:58:29 | |
# Hey now Bobby McGee, yeah | 0:58:29 | 0:58:33 | |
# Lord, I'm calling my lover, calling my man | 0:58:33 | 0:58:36 | |
I said I'm calling my lover just the best I can | 0:58:36 | 0:58:38 | |
# C'mon, where is Bobby now, where is Bobby McGee, yeah | 0:58:38 | 0:58:43 | |
# Ah la la la la, la la la la la la la la la la la la | 0:58:43 | 0:58:49 | |
# Hey hey hey, Bobby McGee... # | 0:58:49 | 0:58:51 | |
Do you have an explanation why you're so popular? | 0:58:51 | 0:58:55 |