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ON her 30th birthday, Jennifer Holliday needed a victory. It had been nearly a decade since she'd experienced the sweet success of stardom in the hit Broadway musical Dreamgirls. What was more evident to the singer at age 30 was the bitter hurt of seeing her career on the wane and the loss of her house and nearly all that she owned.
Determined to put a lifetime's worth of blues behind her and to get her career back on track, Holliday went for a new look and a new attitude. After all, she says, in the '90s "it's all about image." She started the process by taking the drastic step of fasting, then continued to diet and exercise. A year later, her efforts paid off with a svelte, 148-pounds-lighter figure, a new husband, and a greater self-awareness.
"It took a lot of determination, a lot of determination," Holliday says of the transformation from a hard-to-fit size 26 to a manageable size 12. "It has been very good, overwhelming."
Poised on the brink of a comeback, Holliday adds: "If this album does not do well, I'm going to be happy anyway [because] the happiest moment in my life is right now. I have found a balance in my life; I feel grounded . . . and I have somebody in my life who loves me for me."
Holliday's victories started as she approached the threshold of a new decade. Age, though, was not as much the motivation for her transformation as was her frustration with her life. She'd watched young singers' careers skyrocket during the four years that hers had faltered. And in taking stock of what went wrong with her career she noted a key ingredient was image.
"So I said 'OK, you've got a new album coming out; you are going to be 30 and if you are going to change, try to make the change now,'" she says. "I wanted to look good because I want to compete. I mean, if it is about dancing, I can dance just as well as Janet can. I don't know about [dancing as well as] Paula Abdul, but I can sing better than both of them."
Clawing her way to the top is a new experience for Holliday, who in 1979 at age 17 had all but knocked her competition out cold when she landed a part the same day she auditioned for the Broadway show Your Arm's Too Short To Box With God. Two years later, after putting aspirations of careers in law and politics aside, the Houston-bred performer, who'd grown up singing gospel, was propelled to superstardom as "the voice" of the award-winning Dreamgirls musical. Her stunning, roof-raising rendition of "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" led to a Tony Award and Grammy Award.
Despite the critical acclaim, Holliday left the musical in 1984 to pursue a recording career. "I felt if I stayed in plays, then [people] would only want to see me in plays," she says. Plus, she grew weary of the isolation of stardom. "It [stardom] kind of separated me too fast from everybody without everybody getting a chance to know me," she says.
But as a solo artist, her star dimmed. Sales from three albums never quite measured up to the success of her Grammy-winning single "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" or her other Dreamgirls hit, "I Am Changing." Between recordings, she experienced some success touring in 1986 with the musical Sing Mahalia Sing. But a return to Broadway was an unspeakable option to Holliday, whose earlier experiences had soured her on stage work.
More than anything, Holliday wanted to make it without the trappings of a stage play or musical. And yet, she'd failed to make more than a ripple in the recording industry. At the same time, she was still being advised to dress in $1,500 outfits and work with producers and publicity agents at $7,000 a shot. Instead of paving the road to success, the advice, coupled with her commercial failings, created a trail of debt. In 1987, she'd lost her car, her four-bedroom house and possessions. More importantly, she had lost her confidence. "After the third [failed] album I felt maybe this wasn't what I was meant to do," she says. But she also told herself, "your life isn't over."
The downward spiral miraculously ended in 1988, when, during a chance meeting at a brunch in Los Angeles, a friend introduced her to Arista Records' hitmaker Clive Davis. The meeting led to a new record contract. Holliday almost immediately found herself in a studio again, recording new music with producers such as Michael Powell, who'd worked with Anita Baker. During the 2 1/2-year process, she also met, and later married Detroit singer-songwriter Billy Meadows.
With the elements for success in place, a skittish Holliday didn't want to take any chances. So, on the dawning of her 30th birthday, she took stock of her life. Friends said that as a youngster starting out in the recording business she lacked business savvy, was ill-advised and matched with the wrong material. Even if that were true, she says, she could not shake the notion that maybe her weight also played a role. It was as if she was living out the bitter ironies of her Effie Melody White character in Dreamgirls, who was dismissed from her singing group because she was overweight and lacked a "crossover" voice.