Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things

Follow the six-decade journey of the extraordinary performer as her sublime voice transforms the tragedies and troubles of her life into joy.

Ella Fitzgerald was a 15-year-old street kid when she won a talent contest in 1934 at the Apollo theatre in Harlem. Within months she was a star. Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things follows her extraordinary journey over six decades as her sublime voice transforms the tragedies of her own life and the troubles of her times into joy.

Just One of Those Things uses never-before-seen images and unheard interviews to bring Ella to life and to tell the story of her music, sung by a Black woman who makes her career in the face of vile racism.

Here is an Ella the world never knew—tough, thoughtful, funny, and a dazzling musical innovator. Just One of Those Things uncovers Ella’s commitment to work for civil rights, and it explores the conflicts that always haunted this intensely private woman: the struggle to reconcile her hunger for adoring audiences with her longing for a domestic life with her husband and son.

At a time when she was the biggest singing star in the world, her pianist and friend Oscar Peterson said Ella was “the loneliest woman in the world.” But as Jamie Cullum says, “her music is one of the reasons it’s worth being on this planet.”

Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things features interviews with Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Smokey Robinson, and a rare interview with Ella’s son Ray Brown Junior.

This documentary explores the exquisite artistry of the first lady of scat as she embraced civil rights issues and influenced US music and culture. Catch Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things on Netflix.