Jennifer Holliday: Original Dreamgirl feels dissed...

I'm taking a friend to a screening of "Dreamgirls" at The Grove tonight. I saw it a few weeks ago, can't wait to see it a second time and am sure I will see it some more as a paying customer over the holiday season. To me and a lot of other people, the best part about the movie is the glorious Jennifer Hudson as Effie who I think should/will win the Oscar for best supporting actress.
But all of this hoopla has left the original Effie, Jennifer Holliday, out in the cold. Just 21 when she debuted on the show in 1981, she won a Tony Award for best actress and two Grammys and her version of "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" has long been a classic. But she was not asked to appear in the film - even in a cameo as her Broadway co-star Loretta Devine was - and was disinvited to the film's premiere. This despite the fact that Holliday says filmmakers used her voice for the hit song to market the movie.

"For six months they used my voice on the trailer,� Holliday tells Deborah Norville of "Inside Edition." She says she doesn’t want people to think she’s angry, but admits the resurgence of interest in the Dreamgirls story is extremely bittersweet for her.

“What the public doesn't understand is that I actually created my role. I wasn't a girl-for-hire where someone said, ‘Here’s the script and here's the songs--your job starts tomorrow. I actually created that role,� Holliday says.
“Everything from the song And I Am Telling You to the end of the second act, I created. Effie was not in the second act at all. I fought for her to be there. I fought for her to come back strong. I fought for her to have more songs.�

Holliday has gained a lot of weight (topping out at 340 pounds) and lost her recording contract because of it. She was so despondent that she attempted suicide. “I took an overdose of sleeping pills and, just to show you how bad my career was, I tried to take my life, and nobody even wrote about it. It was like, ‘Okay, I didn't even get in the paper.’ They didn’t even know who I was,� she says.

But Holliday slimmed down long ago, has released several CDs, and says she’s coming forward now because she feels more optimistic and in control for the first time in years. “I was only a voice for so many years, not a person. But I do feel, for the first time, that I am a person and that I am more than a voice and somehow I do want to move forward. I’ve chosen life, although it's still quite difficult for me day-to-day, but I do want to live.�

Even though she has been frozen out of all things "Dreamgirls," Holliday is gratified that her unforgettable performance on the 1982 Tony Awards is on a popular video website YouTube. “I’m glad about YouTube showing my Tony performance because that way the public can see that I did it first and that this is being copied.�