Linda Lipnack Kuehl
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January 24, 1940
Linda Lipnack Kuehl | |
|---|---|
| Born | Linda Lipnack January 24, 1940 New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 6, 1978 (aged 38) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Occupation | Arts journalist |
| Known for | Research on the life of Billie Holiday |
Linda Lipnack Kuehl (January 24, 1940 – February 6, 1978)[1] was an American arts journalist, based in New York City. Intending to write a biography of Billie Holiday, she interviewed friends, fellow performers, and key figures in Holiday's life, but died before its completion.[2] Various other writers' biographies on Holiday have drawn upon Kuehl's material, as did the film Billie (2019), which is narrated by Kuehl's recorded interviews.[3] She worked as a high school teacher and free lance writer.[3]
Interviews that Kuehl conducted with writers were published in The Paris Review in 1972 and 1978.[4]
She was a Jewish feminist[5] and a fan of Billie Holiday.[6] In 1971, she began plans for a biography of Holiday, who had died aged 44 in 1959.[3] She interviewed almost 200 people—friends, family members, band members, peers from 1930s Harlem, piano players, psychiatrists and a pimp—and was still finding people in 1978.[7][3][8] Her archive on Holiday included these interviews on 125 audio tapes[8] as well as "a long paper trail, including police files, transcripts of court cases, royalty statements, shopping lists, hospital records, private letters, muddled transcripts and fragments of unfinished chapters."[9] However, Kuehl did not complete the book.[3] In 1978 she was found dead on a Washington, D.C. sidewalk,[3][8][10] after attending a Count Basie concert.[11] "Police deemed it suicide, Kuehl having supposedly jumped from her hotel room, although there was no proof of this",[3] and her family believes she may have been murdered.[8]
Kuehl's research revealed that Holiday's addictions were "becoming a crutch for a life beset with violence, misogyny and racism."[2]
