Editing Billie Holiday (section)

==Illness and death==
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with [[cirrhosis]] of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed.{{Sfn|Feather,|1972|p=82}} By May 1959, she had lost {{convert|20|lb|kg}}. Her manager, Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital.{{Sfn|Feather,|1972|p=83}} On May 31, 1959, Holiday was finally taken to [[Metropolitan Hospital]] in New York for treatment of both liver and [[heart disease]]. While in the hospital, narcotics police came to her hospital room and placed her under house arrest for narcotics possession.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yf2741A_BkYC&dq=billie+holiday+arrested+hospital&pg=PA106 | title=A to Z of American Women in the Performing Arts | isbn=978-1-4381-0790-5 | last1=Sonneborn | first1=Liz | date=May 14, 2014 | publisher=Infobase }}</ref> On July 15, she received [[last rites]].{{Sfn|White,|1987|p=110}} Holiday died at age 44 at 3:10 am on July 17, 1959, of [[pulmonary edema]] and [[heart failure]] caused by cirrhosis of the liver.<ref>{{cite web | title=Billie Holiday Biography | work=Biography.com | date=November 12, 2021 | page=3 | url=http://www.biography.com/people/billie-holiday-9341902?page=3 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230207064657/https://www.biography.com/musicians/billie-holiday |archive-date=February 7, 2023}}</ref>{{Sfn|''New York Times'', July 18,|1959|p=15}}{{Sfn|''New York Times Magazine'', December 24,|1972|pp=8–9, 18–19}}

In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings by McKay and she died with US$0.70 in the bank ($7.40 in 2023). The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband was documented on [[NPR]] in 2012. Her funeral was held on July 21, 1959, at the [[St. Paul the Apostle Church (Manhattan)|Church of St. Paul the Apostle]] in Manhattan. She was buried at [[Saint Raymond's Cemetery]] in the Bronx. [[Michael P. Grace II|Michael P. Grace ll]], a songwriter and theater producer based in [[Manhattan]], paid for the funeral.{{Sfn|NPR, ''Morning Edition'', July 17,|2012}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Michael P. Grace (Producer, Lyricist, Composer) |url=https://playbill.com/person/michael-grace-vault-0000006941}}</ref>

Gilbert Millstein of ''The New York Times'', who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album ''The Essential Billie Holiday'', described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:

{{blockquote|Billie Holiday died in Metropolitan Hospital, New York, on Friday, July 17, 1959, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death. She had been strikingly beautiful, but her talent was wasted. The worms of every kind of excess – drugs were only one – had eaten her. The likelihood exists that among the last thoughts of this cynical, sentimental, profane, generous and greatly talented woman of 44 was the belief that she was to be arraigned the following morning. She would have been, eventually, although possibly not that quickly. In any case, she removed herself finally from the jurisdiction of any court here below.{{Sfn|''Essential Billie Holiday'',|1989}}{{rp|Millstein's liner notes}} }} When Holiday died, ''The New York Times'' published a short obituary on page 15 without a [[byline]]. She left an estate of $1,000 ($10,577 in 2023), and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print.

Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the [[DownBeat#Hall of Fame|Down Beat Hall Of Fame]], and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross's portrayal of Holiday in ''Lady Sings the Blues'' was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.{{Sfn|NPR, ''All Things Considered'', April 7,|2015}}

Singer [[Adelaide Hall]] made a secret visit to Holiday's bedside at the Metropolitan Hospital, on or around June 12, 1959. Hall's spoken account of her visit was captured on tape by the journalist Max Jones in 1988.<ref>Sound and Moving Image Catalogue: Adelaide Hall interviewed by Max Jones, 1988: Part 1 and Part 2: duration 2 hours 36 minutes: [[British Library]], London:
http://sami.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5?searchdata1=CKEY5192620</ref> Hall's long-time friend, Iain Cameron Williams, and author of Hall's biography, also had direct knowledge of the visit. However, he refrained from releasing the information as he only had Hall's one-to-one spoken account and no further backup. In July 2022, after finding transcripts of Max Jones's tape, Williams wrote an article for ''The Syncopated Times'' about Hall's secret visit.<ref>{{cite web|title=Adelaide Hall's secret visit to Billie Holiday's bedside before her death |first= Iain Cameron |last=Williams|date=July 31, 2022|access-date= October 16, 2022|url=https://syncopatedtimes.com/adelaide-halls-secret-visit-to-billie-holidays-bedside-before-her-death/}}</ref>
George Jacobs claims Sinatra also visited Holiday on her death bed, and promised to supply her with the heroin she desperately wanted.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jacobs |first=George |title=Mr S |publisher=Harper Entertainment |year=2001 |pages=151 |language=English}}</ref>