One hundred years ago, Billie Holiday, as she later became known, was born in Philadelphia.

The legendary singer would have an enormous impact on jazz and pop music. Here are 100 interesting facts about the highs and lows of her life, those she influenced and her lasting legacy.

1. Her birth name was Eleanora Fagan Gough.

2. There are discrepancies in her birth accounts, with Holiday claiming to be born in Baltimore in her memoirs while her biographer Donald Clarke notes a time of birth, name of doctor and original spelling of her name on her birth certificate dated April 7, 1915, from Philadelphia general hospital, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

3. Some sources say her birth certificate reads Elinore Harris, according to Biography.com.

4.Her mother, Sadie Fagan, was a teenager when she gave birth to Holiday.

5. Her father was believed to be jazz musician Clarence Holiday.

6. She grew up in Baltimore in the 1920s.

7. During her childhood, Holiday often skipped school, leading to her mother going to court over truancy.

8. Holiday was raised in poverty.

9. On her childhood, Holiday said, “I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.”

10. Holiday was sent to a facility for troubled girls at 9 years old.

11. Reports say she dropped out of school in the fifth grade and found a job running errands in a brothel, according to PBS.

12. Holiday moved with her mom, who was searching for a better job, to Harlem, N.Y., before her teen years.

13. She was later arrested for prostitution, according to PBS.

14. Holiday was discovered by producer John Hammond at 18.

15. John Hammond said of Holiday, “She was the first girl singer I’d come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius.”

16. Producer Hammond called her the greatest singer he ever heard.

17. In 1933, she cut her first record and Hammond organized her first commercial recording session with Benny Goodman.

18. In 1937, Holiday toured with Count Basie Orchestra.

19. She changed her name to Billie Holiday as an appreciation to film star Billie Dove.

20. She was the first black woman to work with a white orchestra when she paired withclarinetist, composer and bandleader Artie Shaw in 1938.

21. Holiday debuted Strange Fruit in a 1939 performance at Cafe Society, New York’s first integrated nightclub.

22. The song Strange Fruit was written by Abel Meeropol as a poem.

23. In 1941, Holiday married James Monroe.

24. It was a brief relationship and the pair divorced.

25. During her relationship with trumpeter Joe Guy in the 1940s, she began using heroin.

26. Holiday’s mother passed away in the late 1940s.

27. She signed with Decca Records in 1943.

28. In 1944, Holiday received Esquire Magazine’s Gold Award for Best Leading Female Vocalist. She would go on to receive similar awards in the following years.

29. Much to her satisfaction, she appeared with her idol Louis Armstrong in the filmNew Orleans in 1947.

30. Unfortunately, she played the role of a maid in New Orleans.

31. Holiday was arrested in 1947 for narcotics possession.

32. She was sentenced to a year and a day of prison time and went to a federal rehabilitation facility in West Virginia.

33. Because of her prison term, Holiday was not able to get a license to play in cabarets and clubs.

34. However, she managed to play in New York’s Club Ebony with the help of the owner, John Levy, who would become her boyfriend and manager.

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SOURCE: Malak Monir and Jessica Durando
USA TODAY Network