Independent Lens — Episode 14: Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life

You are watching the episode Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life As Duke Ellington's co-composer, arranger, and right-hand man, Billy Strayhorn wrote some of the greatest American music of the 20th century. But as a gay man in the ’40s and ’50s, Strayhorn had to lead a discreet existence, while Ellington played to thunderous applause on center stage.