Short answers, pulled from the story.
Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on the 7th of April, 1915, in Philadelphia to Clarence Halliday and Sarah Julia Fagan. She took the professional name Billie Holiday, adapting it from actress Billie Dove and her father's performing surname.
Holiday considered "Strange Fruit", recorded for Commodore Records on the 20th of April, 1939, her biggest-selling record. The song, based on Abel Meeropol's poem about lynching, was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s and sold a million records.
Holiday lost her New York City Cabaret Card after pleading guilty to narcotics possession following her arrest on the 16th of May, 1947, and serving a sentence at Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The card was required to perform in any venue that sold alcohol, so its loss forced her to work exclusively in concert halls and theaters.
Billie Holiday performed at Carnegie Hall three times in sold-out concerts. The first was on the 27th of March, 1948, where 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record for the venue at the time. She returned on the 10th of November, 1956, for two sold-out performances in a single day.
"God Bless the Child" grew out of an argument between Holiday and her mother Sadie, who refused to lend her money despite Holiday having funded her restaurant. Holiday stormed out saying "God bless the child that's got his own", then wrote the song with pianist Arthur Herzog Jr. It reached number 25 on the pop charts in 1941, ranked third in Billboard's year-end songs, and sold over a million copies.
Holiday died on the 17th of July, 1959, at age 44, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis, at Metropolitan Hospital in New York. She had been admitted on the 31st of May, 1959, for liver and heart disease, but federal narcotics agents handcuffed her to her hospital bed during her final weeks. She died with seventy cents in the bank.