Flashback Friday: Say Goodbye to American Idol With the Audition That Launched Jennifer Hudson

Before ”Dreamgirls” and ”The Color Purple”, she was just a young lady who wanted to be a singer.

Cue the saddest of the sad trombones: American Idol is getting ready to end its long run of world domination on Fox. This week's Flashback Friday is a tribute to that show and its tendency to launch the careers of artists who go on to wow the world of musical theater.

Perhaps the best known (which also includes Rock of Ages Tony nominee Constantine Maroulis) is Jennifer Hudson, who put all the naysayers to shame when she blew the roof off every movie theater in the world with her tremendous, Oscar-winning Effie White in Dreamgirls. She'll do the same thing on Broadway this fall as the sultry Shug Avery in The Color Purple. But before those milestones, she was just a young woman singing like her life depended on it, for a panel of three seen-it-all judges.

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