Forty-two years after she first told the world “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” in her Tony-winning role as Effie White in “Dreamgirls,” Jennifer Holliday remains to be here, folks.
But now her signature number has a totally different meaning for the 62-year-old diva, who has overcome weight struggles, profession setbacks and a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 1999.
“Once I first sang it, I used to be 19 occurring 20 years old,” Holliday told The Post. “And as I became a young woman after which an actual woman after which a grown-ass woman, the song took on different meanings. It’s a song of survival today. It’s like, ‘And I’m telling you that I’m still here. I’m not going.’ So for me, more so than anything, it’s me telling the world — and telling myself — that I’m worthy to still be here and that I still have lots more to supply.”
Holliday can be belting out “And I Am Telling You” — together with other show tunes and standards — when she makes her return to Broadway for a mini residency at 54 Below that runs Tuesday through Feb. 26. A part of the cabaret’s Diamond Series, her six-night stand within the intimate supper-club setting was originally slated for February 2021, but was postponed on account of COVID-19.
“That is our third time attempting to do that. It’s been a ‘Diamond’ within the rough, literally,” said Holliday with amusing. “So now my show is gonna be more of a private style of show . . . to reflect how I’m feeling straight away. I feel most of us feel more raw now. Most of us feel more like we would like to be known personally.”
But after shedding some 200 kilos — about half of her weight that had grown to almost 400 kilos — Holliday doesn’t feel the identical personal connection to Effie anymore.
“A whole lot of the association with Effie related to the burden and feeling not attractive,” she said. “And once I first lost the burden [in 1990], quite a lot of people were upset with me. They were like, ‘Oh, you’re betraying yourself by shedding pounds.’ Even Barbra Streisand told me that I shouldn’t shed pounds because that’s what I’m known for. She said that I shouldn’t shed pounds because they tried to make her fix her nose when she got within the business and that the things that we’re related to make us us.”
In actual fact, Holliday has even needed to wear a fat suit to take care of the image of Effie.
“Once I reprised my role persistently over the course of the past 40 years in road firms [performing] ‘Dreamgirls,’ it was the query of, ‘Do I wear a fat suit or do I not wear a fat suit?’ So to start with, I used to do the fat suit. Then as I got older, I said, ‘You recognize what? I don’t need to do the fat suit.’ ”
But some advice from an Emmy-winning actress helped the slimmed-down star to embrace her inner Effie: “Sharon Gless from ‘Cagney and Lacey’ told me, ‘Listen, unfortunately people do associate Effie with being chubby. So here’s what you do: Wear the fat suit, each night take it off, bless it for what it’s meant for you, and don’t let it make you’re feeling down.’ ”
Definitely, Holliday has been on the upswing in recent times. She’s been back on Broadway as Shug Avery in “The Color Purple” in 2016 and as Matron “Mama” Morton in “Chicago” last 12 months. And her multiple sclerosis has been in remission for six years.
Then, after all, there was her triumphant moment on the 2021 Tony Awards when, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of “Dreamgirls,” she brought the home down singing “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”
“I desired to represent [director and co-choreographer] Michael Bennett and all of the others who had died from AIDS,” said Holliday, who’s now based in Atlanta. “I feel it got here across so well since it wasn’t about me — it was in regards to the statement that ‘Dreamgirls’ made.”
