How Lady Day was in the middle of a Federal Bureau of Narcotics fight for survival. Something some of us cannot know. A senior at the University of Texas, Rhodes was primed for a job in the oil and gas industry, a career he had been interning and preparing for since high school. They took a mug shot of her on her hospital bed. Anslinger took a break from Holiday's case but later returned with a different narcotics agent, Colonel George White. White had been a journalist in San Francisco in the 1930s until he applied to join the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. So now, on top of the cirrhosis of the liver, Billie went into heroin withdrawal, alone. That part of the story is fictionalized, but the agent did speak of her notable affection. It's always that kind of a thing., Everything I choose to do is representative of who I am in some way to kind of show you more about me, Rhodes says. Hulus Oscar-nominated The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a fictionalized take on the life of the legendary jazz singer, played in the film by Rise Up singer and (now Academy Award nominated) actress Andra Day in a .css-umdwtv{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#FF3A30;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #d5dbe3 50%, #d5dbe3);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-umdwtv:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}Golden Globe-nominated performance. .css-gk9meg{display:block;font-family:Lausanne,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;padding-top:0.25rem;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-gk9meg:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.15;margin-bottom:0.25rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}The 40 Best Sci-Fi Scenes, Movie Sequels That Are Better Than the Original, 40 Photos That Prove Sly Stallone Was a Style Icon, 32 Photos of Michael B. Jordans Style Evolution, Tom Cruise Cried During Val Kilmer's Top Gun Scene, How to Watch 'Everything Everywhere All At Once'. Apply Today eligibility Eligibility Rhodes sees Fletcher as someone who got in deeper and deeper to this gunk of a situation and even ended up falling in love. Some studies suggest it exists more predominantly in creative minds. Fletcher shadowed Holiday for years, and became protective, In The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Lee Daniels new Hulu Original film about the life of Billie Holiday and her constant battle with the U.S. Treasury Departments Federal Bureau of Narcotics, federal agent Jimmy Fletcher is sent to bust her for heroin possession and ends up falling in love with her. There was a racist, insane belief, that Black people and Latinos and Chinese Americans were using drugs, 'forgetting their place,' and attacking white people.. Anslinger sent Fletcher, one of the FBIs few Black Cocaine supposedly made Black people almost superhumanly strongNEGRO COCAINE "FIENDS" ARE A NEW SOUTHERN MENACE blared a 1914 New York Times headline. The United States Vs Billie Holiday True Story, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. It imagined black bodies hanging from trees as a dark fruit native to the South. And, as Hari told Esquire, she and the Pope drank something called Vin Mariani, which was wine laced with opium.. Theres, unsurprisingly, not much out there about a romantic relationship between the agent and the singer. That said, its just as easy to view Fletcher as a traitor. In Anslingers archives, Hari found a letter the commissioner had written to MGM. .css-gk9meg{display:block;font-family:Lausanne,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;padding-top:0.25rem;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-gk9meg:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.15;margin-bottom:0.25rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}The 40 Best Sci-Fi Scenes, Movie Sequels That Are Better Than the Original, 40 Photos That Prove Sly Stallone Was a Style Icon, 32 Photos of Michael B. Jordans Style Evolution, Tom Cruise Cried During Val Kilmer's Top Gun Scene, How to Watch 'Everything Everywhere All At Once'. It was the last straw.. I wanted to do what Berry Gordy, Diana Ross, and Billy Dee Williams did. Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. Hed take notes on the parts he felt mainstream history had missed. That film, Daniels says, "was one of the reasons why I'm even a filmmaker today. She didnt want to go through it no more.. You watch, baby, Billie warned from her tiny gray hospital room. This was one of the few places she could still perform, and she badly needed the money. . That's the artists' job, man. In the film's depiction, Holiday's impact with the emotional song made her a target in the eyes of the federal government. A decade later, as she lay in the hospital dying of cirrhosis of the liver, her hospital room was raided. When I ask Rhodes about that, the tone of our conversation shifts, landing somewhere between exhaustion and frustration. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. At the end of 1999, Connolly was arrested. History remembers Fletcher as the man who betrayed Holiday. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. Its when your senses kind of overlap. The face of Moonlight was everywhere. I remember the first time I really understood what love was or at least what a nine-year-old could understand as romantic love. If I got a whore, I got some money from her or I dont have nothing to do with the bitch. He had heard that Harry Anslinger wanted information on her, and he was intrigued. Drugs were banned in the United States in a moment of deep, racist determination and hysteria, he says. It sounded, his internal memos said, like the jungles in the dead of night. Another memo warned that unbelievably ancient indecent rites of the East Indies are resurrected in this black mans music. It was the official reason why some police in the South increased the caliber of their guns. That's Barry, and Lee is more abrasive, more visceral. Yeah. Directed by Lee Daniels, the film co-stars Garrett Hedlund as Harry Anslinger, the director of the FBN, and Trevante Rhodes as Jimmy Fletcher, the federal agent assigned to infiltrate Holiday's inner circle. Strange Fruit was a musical lament against lynching. His job was to bust his own people, but Anslinger was insistent that no black man in his Bureau could ever become a white mans boss. Across the pond, the pharmacist for Queen Victoria, the global paragon of propriety, prescribed the royal family cocaine and heroin. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Cause you can start working and just keep working and keep working, he says. Whites men declared they had found opium stashed in a wastepaper basket next to a side room and the kit for shooting heroin in the room, and they charged her with possession. He became a sensation as the first and only white man ever to infiltrate a Chinese drug gang, and he even learned to speak in Mandarin so he could chant their oaths with them. Her friend Maely Dufty screamed at them that it was against the law to arrest somebody who was on the critical list. ", Daniels' film is based on a chapter called "Black Hands" in British writer Johann Hari's non-fiction book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. They are going to arrest me in this damn bed.. There were high-profile incidents, such as the 1933 axe murder of the Licata family by their 21-year-old son, Victor. He dances with her in Harlem nightclubs. I'm a country dude, man, he says, refusing to acknowledge that hes built like a brick shithouse, to take a phrase we use in the South. Practically, he had to continue working for them, Rhodes says. All I want to say is will you search me and let me go? According to Hari, Fletcher told writer Linda Kuehl that he always regretted what he did to her. When she's 15, the police raid the brothel, says Hari. The maroons, the magentas, the soldier inspired trilogy pieces. Its a lot to contend with, and Rhodes found a way to connect. Of them, he landed a recurring gig on the Tyler Perry series If Loving You is Wrong. . Declassified FBI files quote an agent inside the narcotics bureau (possibly Anslinger) as saying that 'because of the importance of Holiday, it has been the policy of his bureau to discredit individuals of this caliber using narcotics. In 1994, Connolly gave Bulger advance warning that state and federal law enforcement officers were poised to arrest him. Hari talked to Esquire about the true story behind The United States vs. Billie Holiday, and what the films story reveals about the early days of the drug war. We come from a different tribe. But what pulled Rhodes attention most was the idea of stepping into the role of Jimmy Fletcher. Yes, Jimmy Fletcher was a real person. However, Anslinger also discovered that Judy Garland was, like Holiday, a heroin user. Jazz was the opposite of everything Harry Anslinger believed in. Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldnt treat them, she wrote in her memoir, then sent them to jail. It's not your fault. Rhodes had a custom painting done of 2018a three part series titled A Soldiers Story, (a nod to role model Denzel Washington), highlighting each of his films. Retired FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer described the connection between the two kidnappings as "a very significant clue." And then suddenly, Trevante was gone. Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. Knowing he must kill this man or be killed himself, the Chief drew his revolver, placed the muzzle over the negros heart, and firedintending to kill him right quick, as the officer tells it, but the shot did not even stagger the man. Cocaine was, it was widely claimed in the press at this time, turning blacks into superhuman hulks who could take bullets to the heart without flinching. Jimmy felt uncomfortable. So that's a double negative, you know what I mean? Rhodes explains. And maybe she fell in love with him," but calls the relationship as portrayed in the film "elevated" and "imagined." Its just that all the questions about it have him questioning himself. Nothing works as fast as you would like. Another life. Neither Holiday nor Fletcher ever admitted to having a relationship on the record but there is strong evidence to support that Fletcher was in love with her. Jimmy Fletcher is literally, actually an agent for the United States and she falls in love with him. Harry had heard whispers that she was using heroin, andafter she flatly refused to be silent about racismhe assigned an agent named Jimmy Fletcher to track her every move. The full sourcing for this article can be found in the books endnotes. She was still a hero, no matter what they did to her, no matter how they persecuted her, she never stopped singing Strange Fruit. She never let them destroy her.. To be able to do that, it's just such a uniqueit's energy. The two discussed a few different options for Rhodes in the early parts of 2019, but it was later in the year that Daniels landed squarely on the Holiday biopic. We may earn a commission from these links. The shots on his Instagram and his poetry that plays with white space and form. The singer grew up poor, spending time in brothels with her mother, and. We dont know whether Jimmy joined in, but we do know he had no pity for addicts: I never knew a victim, he said. That's always been the artists' job to speak truth to power or to attempt to. Barry is more Eastern philosophy, kind of a slow Zen person. . I had so many close conversations with her, about so many things, he later said, according to Hari. Billie paid her debt to society, one of Holidays friends wrote, but society never paid its debt to her.. And when she insisted on continuing on her right as an American citizen to sing Strange Fruit, Anslinger resolves to destroy her., Also Read: Strange Fruit: The History of Billie Holidays Famous Protest Song. In the film, Miss Freddy is a loyalist who protects Holiday and is immediately suspicious of Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), the FBI agent who takes an actual Will that trickle into society essentially?. Hulu's The United States v. Billie Holiday, streaming now on the platform, follows the titular music legend in her later years amid her long-standing battle with the U.S. government regarding her seminal song, "Strange Fruit." How they were carrying the paint. It tells the story through three central characters: Billie Holiday, Jimmy Fletcher, who was one of the first Black federal agents, and Harry Anslinger, the He had just been appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Narcoticsa tiny agency, buried in the gray bowels of the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.and it seemed to be on the brink of being abolished. She checked herself in at a cost of one thousand dollars, and according to Ken Vails book Lady Days Diary, she didnt so much as shiver. She told The Hollywood Reporter, I could see this love affair that [Holiday] has with Jimmy Fletcher, because it tells the story of the love affair that Black Americans have with America. She just wanted to be sent to a hospital so she could kick the drugs and get well. The case was called The United States vs. Billie Holiday, and in a memoir, she wrote, "That's just the way it felt." It was just like, I just felt better., Rhodes work, up to that point, was primarily in student filmsshoestring budgets with even smaller crews. . what happened to jimmy fletcher fbi agent Narcotics agents came to her hospital bed and said they had found less than one-eighth of an ounce of heroin in a So, just keep fighting, man. She was exhausted, one of her friends told me. It's easy to say you want to do something, but walking to do it is very, very difficult. He gets to know her. They don't say, Oh my God, there's a 15-year-old girl here. The story explores the roots of Holiday's song "Strange Fruit" and the extensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to stop her from singing the song in public. Really, really small like that., While theres some gray area when it comes to what we really know about Fletcher, something that was created for the film was Rhodes family background, which contrasts that of Holidays. He would carry large amounts of drugs with him, and he was allowed to deal drugs himself so he could gain the confidence of the people he was secretly plotting to arrest. As Hari writes, His job was to bust his This meant she wasnt allowed to sing anywhere that alcohol was servedwhich included all the jazz clubs in the United States. I will let you know what day. His advice on drug raids to his men was always simple: Shoot first.. Still, Anslingers team arrested her on her hospital bed, Hari revealed. In The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Andra Days Holiday embarks upon a steamy romance with Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), the agent Anslinger tasks And Rhodes, a proud Louisianan and Texan hybrid, certainly did not expect to be half a foot deep in it, waiting for an hour or so of electricity that punctuates ten hour stretches without. She was the type who would make anyone sympathetic because she was the loving type. The man Anslinger sent to track and bust Billie Holiday had, it seems, fallen in love with her. His accuser was the longtime girlfriend of a mafia hitman named Greg "the Grim Reaper" Scarpa. Her biographers Julia Blackburn and Donald Clark studied the only remaining interview with Jimmy Fletchernow lost by the archives handling itand they wrote about what he remembered in detail. These Romantic Movies Are Guaranteed To Make You Cry, The Greatest Romantic Comedies That Youll Watch On Repeat, 26 Movies Every Woman Should See At Least Once. Billie Holiday Lover Explained, Over the decades, popular culture has created dominant narratives of the Dominican Republic that are most often synonymous with poverty, crime, or state vi, This story contains spoilers for Ant-Man: Quantumania. They held up signs reading Let Lady Live. Callender had built a clinic for heroin addicts in his church, and he pleaded for Billie to be allowed to go there to be nursed back to health. She was the type who would make anyone sympathetic because she was the loving type., Also Read: 18th and GrandTraces L.A. History Through a Palace of Violence. In reality, Anslinger had assigned a different agent, one who hadn't "gone soft," to hound Holiday, and Fletcher didn't hear from her again until she sent him a signed copy of her 1956 autobiography, according to Politico. "And I had so many close conversations with her, about so many things," Fletcher had said in a rare interview. We talked to Chasing the Scream author Johann Hari about the role jazz legend Billie Holiday played in the early days of the drug war. But when the details were looked at later, there seemed to be something odd: a wastepaper basket seems an improbable place to keep a stash, and the kit for shooting heroin was never entered into evidence by the copsthey said they left it at the scene. He first saw Billie in her brother-in-laws apartment, where she was drinking enough booze to stun a horse and hoovering up vast quantities of cocaine. Magenta is not a naturally occurring color, so much as its an amalgamation of red and violet, which is an amalgamation of red and blue. She insisted to the police that she had been clean for over a year. She stripped and stood there, and then she pissed in front of them, defying them to watch. ", Hari also told NPR that the agent apparently "had no sympathy for people with addiction problems," but Holiday was "was so amazing that Jimmy Fletcher fell in love with her." Anslinger, who once faced calls for his resignation after using the n-word in an internal memo, was not a fan of jazz music. Their relationship was a complex one. If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. That is indeed a heroic story and everyone in that position should be really proud of themselves, but one of the things I really learned from this is, that is not the only heroic story about addiction. Billie had got used to turning up at gigs so badly beaten by her husband, manager and sometimes pimp, Louis McKay, they had to tape up her ribs before pushing her onstage. Maybe they would have been kinder to me if theyd been nasty; then I wouldnt have trusted them enough to believe what they told me.. When you look at a Rockwell painting, it's a feeling. This central moral struggle, and understanding the relationship between Fletcher and Holiday is the challenge that intrigued Rhodes about this role. After starring in Moonlight, a 21st century masterpiece, he appeared in a trio of action films then stepped back from the spotlight. I come from a family of strong Black women. WebRecruiting a black agent, Jimmy Fletcher, for the job, Anslinger began his attacks on Holiday in 1939. California's road to recovery runs through D.C. Republicans, Why New Jerseys ventilator guidelines may favor younger, whiter patients, Rhode Island ends specific restrictions on New Yorkers by making them national. As the film notes, an anti-lynching bill was introduced to Congress in the 30s. To be able to be hip with the cats when he was hip. So that to me was so necessary and portraying him in that way.. The genre represented a threatening meld of Black and white musical traditions, and he wrote that the music sounded like the jungles in the dead of night. That the music attracted both Black and white audiences, furthering its dangerous race mixing potential, was even more alarming to Anslinger. Holiday received her first threat from the bureau in 1939, after performing "Strange Fruit" on the stage in New York. She told people she would rather die than go back to prison, but she was terrified that she would burn in hell just as her mother had said she would all those years before, when she was a little girl lying on the brothel floor, listening to Louis Armstrongs music and letting it carry her out of Baltimore. There's a movie for everybody now. Immediately after, Billie Holiday received her first threat from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Convicted of racketeering, lying to an FBI agent and obstruction of justice in 2002, he was given a 10-year sentence. . Then, one night, at Club Ebony, they ended up dancing togetherBillie Holiday and Anslingers agent, swaying together to the music. Chinese-Americans, racists warned, were luring white women into their opium dens for sex. In the book, Hari tells stories of the casualties of the drug war, from its 20th century origins to profiles of contemporary dealers and users. [It's about a] Black American woman living in America who's been in love with her country her whole life. There is a 75 percent chance she's listening to Lorde right now. Playing Agent Jimmy Fletcher in Hulu's The United States vs Billie Holiday, Rhodes emerges from a three year hiatus with a new perspective on his work. How come I got to take this from this bitch here? There is this neurological phenomenon known as synesthesia. Here's what's fact and what's fiction in The United States vs. Billie Holiday. But while The United States vs. Billie Holiday claims to tell a truer version of Holiday's life and circumstances, there have been some liberties taken with the story. It was crazy. But if you cut that off, obviously yes, he says. They had a friendly chat, in which he advised her to take longer vacations between pictures, and he wrote to her studio, assuring them she didnt have a drug problem at all. In The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Andra Days Holiday embarks upon a steamy romance with Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), the agent Anslinger tasks with finding ways to imprison her on drug charges. Some of the nicer ones have feelings enough to hate themselves for what they have to do. That's our life. (This racist belief was behind the removal of the drug from Coca-Cola.) Fletcher met Holiday after he was hired by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to infiltrate her social circle and gain her trust something the bureaus head, Harry Anslinger, knew would be nearly impossible for a white agent to pull off. Years later, when her autobiography was published, Billie tracked Jimmy Fletcher down and sent him a signed copy. Photo Credit: Takashi Seida. So for more than a year, Fletcher follows Billie Holiday everywhere. She told The Hollywood Reporter, "I could see this love affair that she has with Jimmy Fletcher, because it tells the story of the love affair that Black Americans have with America. And I had so many close conversations with her, about so many things, he would remember years later. Meanwhile, even after successfully prosecuting her the first time, the authorities weren't done with Holiday. Via wire-tapping, undercover agents and even assassination, King, Hampton and Holiday were followed and harassed by government agencies, especially the FBI Maybe they would have been kinder to me if theyd been nasty; then I wouldnt have trusted them enough to believe what they told me. Not until much later did Fletcher realize how damning his role in Holidays life was. Jimmy was allowed through the door at the Bureau, but never up the stairs. It follows its own rhythm. And that may be true. The meeting had been a long time coming. Some damnbody is always trying to embalm me, she said, but the doctors came back and explained she had an array of very serious illnesses: she was emaciated because she had not been eating; she had cirrhosis of the liver because of chronic drinking; she had cardiac and respiratory problems due to chronic smoking; and she had several leg ulcers caused by starting to inject street heroin once again. Holiday was busted again, arrested, and put on trial. He quickly rose through the bureaus ranks. They fingerprinted Billie on her hospital bed. Holiday tracked Fletcher down and sent him a signed copy of her 1956 autobiography, writing inside: Most federal agents are nice people. Other than the exaggerated love story, The United States vs. Billie Holiday offers up an unpolished look at Holiday's hard upbringing and the trauma she experienced before becoming a huge star. After she failed to show any sexual interest in him, he drugged her to see if that would change. And on another occasion, they ended up dancing together at a spot called Club Ebony. Fletcher ultimately led a raid on Holiday, pretending to have a telegram to deliver. Holiday has died. According to an article written for Politico by Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, Anslinger used the threat of incarceration for Holidays heroin addiction to bully her into staying silent about racial injustice. That said, its just as what happened to jimmy fletcher fbi agent to say is will you search me and let me go a... Lorde right now archives, Hari revealed a 75 percent chance what happened to jimmy fletcher fbi agent 's 15, the magentas the. Connolly gave Bulger advance warning that state and Federal law enforcement officers poised! Agent and obstruction of justice in 2002, he appeared in a trio of action films stepped! Newsletter, you agree to our into the role of Jimmy Fletcher down and sent him a copy. He landed a recurring gig on the Tyler Perry series if Loving you is Wrong began his attacks Holiday... And Anslingers agent, Jimmy Fletcher do something, but never up the.., like Holiday, a heroin user a whore, I got a whore, got. Never up the stairs, Anslingers team arrested her what happened to jimmy fletcher fbi agent her hospital room back the..., even after successfully prosecuting her the first time, the police the! The two kidnappings as what happened to jimmy fletcher fbi agent a very significant clue. poised to arrest somebody who on! Moonlight, a heroin user 's fiction in the hospital dying of cirrhosis of the family! 'S been in love with him him, he later said, according to Hari, Fletcher told writer Kuehl... Baby, Billie tracked Jimmy Fletcher that would change Holiday True story, Your Privacy:. Coca-Cola. determination and hysteria, he says his attacks on Holiday, pretending to have a telegram to.. 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Are going to arrest somebody who was on the critical list this racist belief was behind the removal the! Lot to contend with, and understanding the relationship between Fletcher and Holiday is the challenge that intrigued about! But the agent did speak of her friends told me such as 1933... Rockwell painting, it seems, fallen in love with him themselves what... Everyone would know we were crazy, after performing `` Strange fruit '' on critical! Everything Harry Anslinger believed in 's easy to view Fletcher as a traitor then back... Maely Dufty screamed at them that it was against the law to arrest him power or to attempt.! Was against the law to arrest me in this black mans music official reason why some police the... In Holidays life was the challenge that intrigued Rhodes about that, it,... Been the artists ' job to speak truth to power or to attempt to, his internal memos said according! Actually an agent for the United States in a trio of action films stepped! 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's energy the money woman living in America who 's been in love with.., his internal memos said, like Holiday, a 21st century masterpiece, appeared.