Tempermental during rehearsals, spending more time after the opening night doing drugs than working to build a career...and whining, whining, whining everyone dares to do the show without her, as if she owned the copywrite.

She also made a big deal about not being asked to participate in Dreamgirls in Concert benefit/recording. She didn't seem the least bothered that none of the other origninal cast members were invited. She's got the diva part down, too bad the talent is missing. I saw her on the Tonys the night she performed her number, I own the cast album. Never was someone so pointlessly raised to (15 minutes of) celebrity.

"And I Am Telling You..." is not even the best song in the score ("I Am Changing" and "One Night Only" are better, just as far as Effie's songs go, not to mention some of the other characters' numbers). But I like it much better sung by Hudson on the sountrack than I have in any other incarnation. She sings in character, and maintains the character. She's never the "star duing her number."

Rich's overwhelming adulation of Holliday is a pretty good example of why he was such a lousy critic (and almost killed the Broadway musical during his stint on the theater beat for the Times).

Credit must be given for Jennifer Holliday's amazing portrayal of Effie and that show-stopping song performance. Maybe Hudson will be as good, I certainly am anxious to see the film and decide for myself. But, even if she is great, Holliday did it first and that has to count for something.

I always thought it was just me that found something amazingly therapuetic about her gut-wrenching performance! In my early twenties, I spent hours listening to her sing that song (on vinyl!) and it gave me comfort and courage. Good story about a great song and singer.

brando as stanley kowalski?

if he never did anything else, wouldn't we praise him for this?

holliday may have depended on bennett but the ultimate kudos go to her wrenching this song from her gut.

unfortunately i never saw her performance live, but i remember seeing her performance on the tonys live in a crowded gay bar in the castro. the entire place went silent and at the end everyone stood, screamed and applauded.

not because it was just a great performance (which it was) but because it was an expression pulled from the depth of her being like any true expression of self can be.

Or did others do that for her?

What--she was wrong to stay in a role that made her famous?

Anyway, while Ally McBeal certainly wasn't the pinnacle of greatness, she does a fabulous rendition of "Brand New Fool" in one episode. There's certainly more to her than Effie.

I do feel that Jennifer Holliday did break free from the Dreamgirls pigeonhole with her 1991 album "I'm On Your Side." It was her first post-weightloss album and I count it as one of the best R&B albums of the early 90s. Her vocals are quite under control compared to "And I am telling you" and the album was quite popular in Europe. Too bad sales in the US must not have been as good, as she hasn't recorded an R&B album since, only one gospel album in 95.

And I can't believe people have a problem with a diva acting like a diva?! Hello! It's part of the package. And to say she has no talent is an insult to actually untalented celebrities who try really hard to be famous for nothing.

PS: Billy Porter's cover of "I am telling you..." on his album "On the Corner of Broadway and Soul" is something else!

she would have had a better career. She may not have retained that high level of celebrity, but she could have created a body of work. Audra MacDonald goes from role to role. Not surprising since she works hard at it and is devoted to her craft. Not to mention Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Betty Buckley. Andrea McArdle, who doesn't get half the attention she should, still works regularly and keeps her carrer going. Can you picture any of these women whining because a revival of a show they did was mounted without them?

Holliday was the worst incarnation of the idea that show business is narcissism, and that talent is secondary. Her clutching at her Dreamgirls role (and Bennett had to beg her to do it in the first place; as everyone around at the time said, she didn't care at all) is pretty sad. Very Baby Jane.

Chris, you should really avoid posting unsubstantiated rumours of drug use. I've never heard that about Holliday--it's unlikely she could've finished her run, if that were the case. And, frankly, liking Dreamgirls without liking Holliday's rendition of And I'm Telling You is like saying you like oatmeal but not the oats. It certainly doesn't bode well for your sense of taste.

As for Holliday, there wouldn't even be Dreamgirls without her. The original production was the first B'way show I ever saw (age 15) and I thought they were all going to be like that--they aren't. Bennett's staging was phenomenal but without Holliday at its core, Dreamgirls would've been just a slick shell with a very hollow centre. (Which is practically what it is without her.) She gave that show some much needed substance.

And outside of the show, in her concert performances, Holliday is all substance. Where are the other great Holliday performances? Well, if Geffen Records hadn't buried her second studio recording, Say You Love Me, and at least release it to iTunes, maybe we could hear some of them including her Grammy-winning performance of Duke Ellington's Come Sunday (available on most Holliday collections) and the irresistable 1980's floor filler, No Frills Love (also available on other collections). The whole album is one satisfying number after another, including the title song, much of it unavailable.

Jennifer Holliday pigeon-holed herself? When has the record industry ever known what to do with a big-voiced, black diva? If anything, isn't their failure to market such a talent what Dreamgirls is about? Maybe we should ask Martha Walsh or Joycelyn Brown? Decades on, Holliday's voice is still the most distinctive thing about Foreigner's I Wanna Know What Love Is and her recordings of Peace In Our Time (from the 1984 Olympics album) or Always On My Mind are standouts, worthy of rediscovery. Exactly how was Jennifer Holliday going to compete with the template of Whitney Houston? (Houston even used to sing I Am Changing in her concert.) No one was going to pose Holliday in a white, one-piece bathing suit on her album cover, were they?

To give all the credit to Michael Bennett is precisely how Michael Bennett would've wanted it. But it's unfair to Holliday. Even the producers of the film version of Chicago had the class to include Chita Rivera in the film--the producers of Dreamgirls could've figured Holliday in there somewhere.

P.S. One of my favourite versions of the song is when Peter Krause as Nate Fischer in Six Feet Under belts out a punk rock version--as a young gay white boy growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, I know I spent at least one summer doinng the same (much to the neighbour's consternation, I'm sure).