Jennifer Holliday back in the game

• Reprints

Jennifer Holliday will be in town on Dec. 7 for a concert at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Broadway production of “Dreamgirls,” and fans still can’t get enough of one of its stars — Tony- and Grammy Award-winning singer Jennifer Holliday. As she walks down the streets of Atlanta, where she’s lived for the past three years, people stop Holliday to talk or just say hello.

“When you’re down South everyone feels like they know you,” Holliday said recently during a phone interview.

The talented vocalist will be in Chicago on Dec. 7 for “Holliday for the Holidays,” a concert performance at The Harris Theater for Music and Dance at Millennium Park. She will be joined by Walt Whitman’s The Soul Children of Chicago and a five-piece band in a program of Broadway hits as well as holiday favorites and gospel songs.

Holliday, 51, skyrocketed to fame after playing the Tony award-winning role of Effie “Melody” White in “Dreamgirls” at age 21 in 1981. It was only her second Broadway performance. She made her Broadway debut was at age 19 in the musical revival, “Your Arms Too Short to Box with God,” where she caught the eye of Broadway director-choreographer Michael Bennett who later cast her in “Dreamgirls.” Holliday wound up winning a Tony for her performance in the musical in 1982.

“It was a very lonely time,” Holliday said. “I had to take care of my voice, and doing eight shows a week didn’t give me a lot of time to recover. I couldn’t do a lot of talking, no late-night partying and no drinking.

“All I could do was eat, and I gained so much weight throughout the course of ‘Dreamgirls,’ almost 400 pounds,” she said. Food became a great sense of comfort and company for me.”

Holliday went on to record several R&B albums, winning two Grammy awards for the song “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” and for her rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” in tribute to gospel legend Mahalia Jackson.

Things began to slow down once the age of music videos began, Holliday said.

“My record company said I had a great voice but I was unattractive so they weren’t going to make any videos,” she said. “My [record] label dropped me. I had to file for bankruptcy. I lost my home. I couldn’t find work.

“I tried to make it as an actress in Hollywood but they already had a ‘big girl,’ Nell Carter,” Holliday said. “They weren’t doing like they do now, the more the merrier. Back then if you were overweight that was worse than being a drug addict.”

Holliday said she underwent gastric bypass surgery in 1990 to lose weight. Within a year, she lost 200 pounds. She said she hasn’t had a problem with her weight since and credits her determination for playing a significant role.

Holliday, was, however, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 17 years ago. The disease affects the central nervous system. In mild cases, patients may experience numbness in the arms and legs. In worse cases, there can be paralysis or loss of vision.

“It is an illness where there is no cure and you don’t know what to expect,” Holliday said. “Each day that you wake up if you can walk, move, and talk then you should just go for it because you don’t know what the next day will bring.”

Her last real setback occurred in 2007, Holliday said. “The very night that Jennifer Hudson got her Golden Globe, [for her performance in the movie ‘Dreamgirls’] I was in the hospital — blind.”

Holliday regained her eyesight three months later, just two days before she was scheduled to perform for a pre-Academy Award countdown show for the E! Network, she said. She thanked God that she was able to see Hudson also win an Oscar and thank Holliday during her acceptance speech.

Holliday performed a duet with Hudson of the song, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” during the BET Awards in 2007 and during Hudson’s concert in Atlanta in 2009. “It was after her family tragedy [the murders of her mother, brother and nephew in Chicago],” she said. “Fantasia and others also came out to perform.”

Holliday has had several guest appearances as an actress in television shows including “Ally McBeal,” “Touched by an Angel,” “Ellen” and “The Love Boat.”

In April, Holliday said she released her first recording of new music in 17 years, the gospel album, “God is Faithful,” on her own record label, Euphonic. She is hoping to release a recording of jazz standards and remakes of classic love and R&B songs by Valentine’s Day.