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Holiday, Billie (1915 – 1959)

‘Let’s be friends and forget it’ — a distraught Holiday calls of her 1957 marriage to Louis McKay

An astonishing, plaintive two-page autograph letter signed by Billie Holiday (‘Lady’), circa 1958, to her husband Louis McKay. The singer writes on two separate sheets of Hotel Wilson stationery in bold pencil.

In full, ‘Mr. McKay, Let’s face it, youer [sic] not my husband, not even  my boyfriend. You have no time for me, everything is your kids, Mildred or just anything comes before me, so I am not important to you in any way. You have even made cracks about houres [sic], dirty bitches that meant more to you than me, so why don’t we come to some kind of understanding. Well, you know, just be my manager until after the Phila story. No, I have no one else and don’t want anyone but Louis how much can I take. Youer [sic] in New York two days and I your wife see you five minutes, so just let’s be friends and forget it, Lady.’ Letter folds, otherwise in fine condition.

Holiday is thought to have met Louis McKay in 1956, while touring. Despite his reputation as a wannabe gangster, McKay won Holiday’s heart, but the relationship was torrid and abusive. He acted as her tour manager, but also embezzled money. On February 23rd 1956, the pair were arrested in a Philadelphia hotel room and charged with possession of narcotics. They were released on bail, pending a court case. In the present letter, Holiday appears to refer to their ongoing legal situation as ‘the Phila Story’ —  it is thought that the couple’s decision to  marry on March 28th 1957 was in part to avoid having to avoid testifying against each other.

In the years after the publication of Holiday’s seminal memoir Lady Sings the Blues ([1956], the singer’s health was in steep decline due to the many years of drug and alcohol abuse. She was placed under arrest in her hospital bed on a further drugs charge, and died there, still married to Louis McKay, but separated. Due to her husband’s swindling of her finances, she had just $0.70 in her bank account upon her death.