The BBC blurb painted this documentary about 'a group of female singers whose voices make you weep, who sang songs of heartbreak and betrayal, had lives that seemed to mirror their music and deaths that came too soon.'
Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Maria Callas, Edith Piaf and Judy Garland sang in different genres, styles and came from different cultures. Garland was the most famous thanks to her acting. They all died relatively young, Joplin was 27 years old when she died and Callas lived the longest as she was 53 years old when she died.
The documentary was a bite sized attempt to inform you of these ladies talent and troubled lives. You had talking heads the more interesting ones were the people who knew them, worked with them or were family members such as Mickey Rooney, Charles Aznavour or Lorna Luft. Then you had modern day personalities who are celebrity fans but they were little more than decoration.
I am not sure the sad songs reflected their lives. Garland sang a wide variety of tunes and of course best known for The Wizard of Oz. Holliday certainly did sing the blues and her life as a black lady in an era where she was treated as a second class citizen would had been harsh. Holliday as the documentary tells you sang about civil rights 20 years before it became fashionable. Callas sang many of the opera classics.
The women did have many similarities in some ways. Problems with their body image such as Joplin and Callas (Callas somehow trimming down, unusual for an opera singer.) The longing to have children, Callas and Holliday, dysfunctional and troubled childhoods, Piaf and Holliday and all of them being surrounded with booze and narcotics or other types of medication. All of them had trouble with men and in Holliday and Joplin's case, women as well.
The women certainly showed grit and dedication to succeed in show business but this programme was a shallow look at their lives and music.
