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Home / Music and sport / Billie Holiday died under arrest in a hospital bed with 70 cents in the bank
Case file s211 · Music and sport · 1959
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1959
Billie Holiday: Portrait of Billie Holiday and Mister, Downbeat, New York, N.Y., ca. Feb. 1947 (LOC, 5020400274, cropped)
Billie Holiday. William P. Gottlieb. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
17 July 1959
Place
Metropolitan Hospital, New York · United States
Field
jazz · Music on the timeline
Legal tradition
US common law (New York) · Common law
Historical event
Federal Bureau of Narcotics campaign under Harry Anslinger
Religion
Billie Holiday: Catholic (recorded as Catholicism on Wikidata; African-American Catholics on Wikipedia)
Music and sportDied without a willPostwarNorth AmericaUnited States

Billie Holiday died under arrest in a hospital bed with 70 cents in the bank

Billie Holiday was admitted to Metropolitan Hospital on 31 May 1959 with cirrhosis and heart disease. Federal narcotics agents said they found heroin in her room, put her under arrest in her bed, and posted a police guard. She was due to be arraigned. She died on 17 July aged 44. She had 70 cents in the bank and $750 taped to her leg, reported as her fee for a tabloid interview. Her estate was valued at about $1,000. She had received $11 in royalties in 1958. She had married Louis McKay, described as a mob enforcer, on 28 March 1957; they were separated when she died. She left no will and no children, so McKay as surviving husband took the estate†. He planned a chain of Billie Holiday singing studios. McKay died in 1980. His estate was still open decades later and sued in federal court over the use of Holiday recordings, according to a Courthouse News report. The value of her name and recordings grew after 1959 and went to the husband she had left†.

What the law took from it

A separated spouse with no divorce inherits everything under intestacy, so a will is the only way to keep an estranged husband from the estate.

Sources
  1. legacy.comPress
  2. courthousenews.comPress
  3. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Billie Holiday died under arrest in a hospital bed with 70 cents in the bank,” story s211, https://www.celebrity.estate/billie-holiday-1959, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Music and sportDied without a willPostwarNorth AmericaCommon lawUnited States