Happy 50th birthday to Jennifer Holliday!

It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly 30 years since Jennifer Holliday won the Tony Award for Dreamgirls for her performance as Effie, the powerful singer kicked out of a fictional group based loosely on The Supremes.

She not only won the Tony for the role, but also a Grammy for her classic version of the show-stopper And I’m Telling You (I’m Not Going).

Jennifer has released many more albums over the years and returned to the stage in 1986 to tour in the musical Sing Mahalia Sing. In the early 90s, she lost a substantial amount of weight and no longer resembled the Effie character on Dreamgirls.

But she still sounds like her!

Here is Jennifer singing I Am Changing, one of my favorite songs from Dreamgirls. The second video is her stunning performance at the 1982 Tony Awards. It is not to be believed.