Description:

Louis McKay archive and estate papers, last husband of Eleanor McKay aka Billie Holiday - Ephemera Group
2 original 5x7 photographs of Lady Day in Germany, one marked on back "signing autographs at Hitler's sports palace…played to 18,000 people" dated Jan. 18 1954, developed at Photo-Schmidt, Köln,
6 large (17" X 11") copies of photographs, and a facsimile from Louis McKay to Mr. Arnold Spitz asking to "..returned them (the photos) as soon as possible"

Louis McKay's biography: The music manager was born on 28 February 1909 in Union Springs, Alabama. He was an American national of African-American ethnicity. Not much is known about his past, but he was married to American jazz singer and songwriter Billie Holiday. The two met while she was touring Europe and were together for 12 years. Billie Holiday was a jazz musician best known for hits like What a Little Moonlight Can Do, My Man, and I Only Have Eyes for You.
Billie won numerous accolades, including four Grammy Awards, posthumously. In 1976, she was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The American jazz singer was also inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Holiday and McKay were allegedly arrested for possession of narcotics in 1956. Billie's marriage to McKay was abusive, just like her past marriages, and the couple was estranged at the time of her death on 17 July 1959. The singer passed away due to pulmonary oedema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver. McKay remarried Bernice Yancey McKay in 1975.

  • Dimensions: 11"H x 17"W (Large photographs)

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