Judy Holliday
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Judy Holliday (born Judith Tuvim, June 21, 1921 – June 7, 1965) was an American actress, comedian, and singer.<ref name="WVobit">Obituary Variety, June 9, 1965, p. 71.</ref>
She began her career as part of a nightclub act before working in Broadway plays and musicals. Her success as Billie Dawn in the 1946 stage production of Born Yesterday led to her being cast in the 1950 film version for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. She was known for her performance on Broadway in the musical Bells Are Ringing, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical and reprising her role in the 1960 film adaptation.
In 1952, Holliday was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to answer claims she was associated with communism. Unlike other figures who lost standing, Holliday managed to get through unscathed. She continued to act on Broadway and film until her death from breast cancer in 1965.
Early life
Holliday was born Judith Tuvim in Queens, New York, the only child of Abe and Helen Tuvim (née Gollomb). She took her stage name from yamim tovim, which is Hebrew for "holidays". Her father was executive director of the foundation for the Jewish National Fund of America (1951–1958),<ref name=NYTimes-Tuvim-Obit-1958>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>1940 United States Federal Census</ref> and a political activist who ran unsuccessfully six times between 1919 and 1938 as a Socialist Party candidate for the New York State Legislature.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her mother taught piano. Both were of Russian-Jewish descent.<ref name=JWA-Encyclopedia>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=FamilySearch-Census-1940>Template:Cite web</ref> Judith grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, New York, and graduated from Julia Richman High School in Manhattan. Her first job was as an assistant switchboard operator at the Mercury Theatre, which was administered by Orson Welles and John Houseman.<ref name=times1>"Judy Holiday, 42, Is Dead of Cancer", The New York Times, June 8, 1965, p. 1</ref><ref name=jwa>"Judy Holliday (1921–1965) Biography" Template:Webarchive, Jewish Women's Archive (jwa.org), retrieved February 21, 2010</ref>
Early career
Holliday began her show business career in 1938 as part of a nightclub act called The Revuers, whose other members were Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Alvin Hammer, John Frank and Esther Cohen.<ref name=jwa/><ref name=tcm>"Judy Holliday Biography", Turner Classic Movies (tcm.com), retrieved February 21, 2010</ref> They played engagements in New York night clubs including the Village Vanguard, Spivy's Roof, the Blue Angel, and the Rainbow Room, and the Trocadero in Hollywood, California. Leonard Bernstein, a friend of the group who shared an apartment with Green, occasionally provided piano accompaniment for their performances.<ref name=life>Sargeant, Winthrop."Judy Holliday"Life Magazine, April 2, 1951.</ref> In 1940, The Revuers released a 78-rpm album entitled Night Life in New York.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The troupe filmed a scene for the 1944 Carmen Miranda movie Greenwich Village. Although the Revuers' performance was cut, Holliday was an unbilled extra in another scene. The group disbanded in early 1944.<ref name=times1/> Holliday remembered her years in the Revuers as unpleasant, saying she was initially a bad actress and so shy that she vomited between shows. She found it difficult to perform on stage in smoke-filled rooms while patrons over-imbibed, heckled, and fought with each other, but deemed entertainers successful if they persevered in such atmospheres.<ref>Dudar, Helen. "The Post Presents the Judy Holliday Story." New York Post, 11 December 1956.</ref>
In her first film role, Holliday played an airman's wife in Twentieth Century Fox’s version of the U.S. Army Air Forces' play Winged Victory (1944). She made her Broadway debut on March 20, 1945, at the Belasco Theatre in Kiss Them for Me, and was one of the recipients that year of the Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Female Actress.<ref>"Kiss Them For Me Internet Broadway Database listing" ibdb.com, retrieved February 21, 2010; accessed 10 June 2014.</ref>
In 1946, she returned to Broadway as the scatterbrained Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. Author Garson Kanin wrote the play for Jean Arthur; but when Arthur left New York for personal reasons, Kanin selected Holliday, two decades Arthur's junior, as her replacement.<ref name=times1/><ref name="life"/><ref>"Born Yesterday Internet Broadway Database listing", ibdb.com, retrieved February 21, 2010</ref> When Columbia bought the rights to adapt Born Yesterday to film, studio boss Harry Cohn initially would not consider casting the Hollywood unknown, even though Holliday received rave reviews for her Broadway performance. Kanin, along with George Cukor, Spencer Tracy, and Katharine Hepburn conspired to promote Holliday by offering her a key part in the Tracy-Hepburn film Adam's Rib (1949).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Cohn eventually relented and offered Holliday the chance to repeat her role for the film version,<ref name=jwa/> but only after a screen test (which at first was used only as a "benchmark against which to evaluate" other actresses being considered for the role).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> For her film performance in Born Yesterday, Holliday won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy; and at the 23rd Academy Awards, won the Academy Award for Best Actress, defeating Gloria Swanson, nominated for Sunset Boulevard; Eleanor Parker, for Caged; and Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, both for All About Eve.<ref name=tcm/><ref>"Top winners from 1950"Template:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore, Chicago Tribune, retrieved February 21, 2010; accessed June 10, 2014.</ref>
Holliday starred opposite newcomer Jack Lemmon in his first two feature films, the comedies It Should Happen to You and Phffft (both 1954).
Film historian Bernard Dick summed up Holliday's acting: "Perhaps the most important aspect of the Judy Holliday persona, both in variations of Billie Dawn and in her roles as housewife, is her vulnerability...her ability to shift her mood quickly from comic to serious is one of her greatest technical gifts."<ref>Dick, Bernard F. Columbia Pictures: Portrait of A Studio (1992). University Press of Kentucky; Template:ISBN, pp. 135–136.</ref> Director George Cukor also observed that Holliday had "that depth of emotion, that unexpectedly touching emotion, that thing which would unexpectedly touch your heart."<ref>Sicherman, Barbara and Green, Carol Hurd. Notable American Women: The Modern Period (1980). Harvard University Press; Template:ISBN, p. 349</ref>
Investigation for Communist sympathies
In 1950, Holliday's name appeared on a list of 151 "pro-Communist" artists in the conservative publication Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and TV. The next year, she was subpoenaed by Senator Pat McCarran's Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, which was investigating subversion and Communist activity in the entertainment industry. Holliday was one of several actors accused of fundraising for Communist front organizations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She appeared before the committee on March 26, 1952, with Simon H. Rifkind as her legal counsel.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>
Holliday was advised to play dumb, as in her film portrayal of Billie Dawn, and she did – often to comedic effect.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Profile, thesmartset.com; accessed June 10, 2014.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She denounced Stalinism and authoritarianism generally, but defended the free speech rights of those who espoused such views.<ref name=":0"/> Holliday later wrote of the experience to her friend Heywood Hale Broun: "Woodie, maybe you're ashamed of me, because I played Billie Dawn ... But I'm not ashamed of myself, because I didn't name names. That much I preserved."<ref name=":0" /> The investigation "did not reveal positive evidence of any membership in the Communist Party".<ref name=":0"|page=15 /> The investigation concluded after three months and, unlike others whose careers were severely damaged by communist allegations, her career was relatively untarnished.
Later career
Holliday starred in the film version of The Solid Gold Cadillac, which was released in August 1956. In November 1956, Holliday returned to Broadway, starring in the musical Bells Are Ringing with book and lyrics by her Revuers friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green and directed by Jerome Robbins. In 1957, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.<ref>Bells Are Ringing listing, ibdb.com, retrieved February 21, 2010.</ref> Of Holliday's performance in the stage musical, Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times:
Nothing has happened to the shrill little moll whom the town loved in Born Yesterday. The squeaky voice, the embarrassed giggle, the brassy naivete, the dimples, the teeter-totter walk fortunately remain unimpaired ... Miss Holliday now adds a trunk-full of song-and-dance routines...Without losing any of that doll-like personality, she is now singing music by Jule Styne and dancing numbers composed by Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse. She has gusto enough to triumph in every kind of music hall antic.<ref>Atkinson, Brooks. "Theater: 'Bells Are Ringing' for Judy Holliday", The New York Times, November 30, 1956, p. 18</ref>
Returning to her film career after a gap of several years, Holliday starred in the film version of Bells Are Ringing (1960), her last film.
In October 1960, Holliday started out-of-town tryouts on the play Laurette, based on the life of Laurette Taylor. The show was directed by José Quintero with background music by Elmer Bernstein and produced by Alan Pakula. When Holliday became ill and had to leave the show, it closed in Philadelphia without opening on Broadway.
Holliday had surgery for a throat tumor shortly after leaving the production in October 1960.<ref>"Judy Holliday Faces Surgery", The New York Times, October 12, 1960, p. 44</ref><ref>"Laurette: Music from the play", kritzerland.com, retrieved February 22, 2010.</ref> Her last role was in the stage musical Hot Spot, costarring newcomers such as Joseph Campanella and Mary Louise Wilson, which closed after 43 performances on May 25, 1963.<ref>Hot Spot listing, Internet Broadway Database; retrieved February 22, 2010.</ref>
Personal life
In 1948, Holliday married clarinetist David Oppenheim, later a classical music and television producer, and academic. The couple had one child, Jonathan, before they divorced in 1957. In the late 1950s, Holliday had a long-term relationship with jazz musician Gerry Mulligan.<ref name=times1/><ref name=tcm/>
In 1960, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Death
Holliday died on June 7, 1965, at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital from metastatic breast cancer.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>“Judy Holliday”, biography, Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Retrieved March 3, 2018.</ref> She was interred in the Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.<ref name=jwa/>
Filmography
Radio appearances
| Year | Program | Episode | Co-stars |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1948 | Ford Theater | My Sister Eileen | Shirley Booth & Virginia Gilmore |
| 1951 | The Big Show | n/a | Fred Allen & Eddie Cantor |
| The Big Show | n/a | Fred Allen & Robert Cummings | |
| The Big Show | n/a | Tallulah Bankhead & Jack Haley | |
| The Big Show | n/a | Jimmy Durante & Carmen Miranda | |
| Hear It Now | The Human Tick | Edward R. Murrow (host) | |
| The Big Show | n/a | Groucho Marx & Bob Hope | |
| The Big Show | n/a | Tallulah Bankhead & Fred Allen | |
| 1957 | Recollections At 30 | Ladies Night | The Revuers (from 1940) |
Stage
| Year | Production | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1942 | My Dear Public | with The Revuers | |
| 1945 | Kiss Them for Me | Alice | |
| 1946 | Born Yesterday | Billie Dawn | |
| 1951 | Dream Girl | Georgina Allerton | |
| 1956 | Bells Are Ringing | Ella Peterson | Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical |
| 1960 | Laurette | Laurette Taylor | Closed out-of-town |
| 1963 | Hot Spot | Sally Hopwinder |
Discography
Holliday recorded two studio albums (not including her film and Broadway soundtracks) during her lifetime.
- Trouble Is a Man (1958)
- Holliday with Mulligan (DRG, recorded 1961, released 1980) with Gerry Mulligan
References
External links
- 1921 births
- 1965 deaths
- 20th-century American actresses
- 20th-century American comedians
- 20th-century American Jews
- 20th Century Studios contract players
- Actresses from Queens, New York
- American film actresses
- American musical theatre actresses
- American people of Russian-Jewish descent
- American stage actresses
- American women comedians
- Best Actress Academy Award winners
- Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
- Burials at Westchester Hills Cemetery
- California Democrats
- Clarence Derwent Award winners
- Columbia Pictures contract players
- Deaths from breast cancer in New York (state)
- Donaldson Award winners
- Hollywood blacklist
- Jewish American actresses
- Jewish American comedians
- Jewish women comedians
- Julia Richman Education Complex alumni
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players
- New York (state) Democrats
- People from Sunnyside, Queens
- Tony Award winners
- Jews from New York (state)
- Comedians from Queens, New York
- Jewish American film people
- Pseudonymous actors
- Pseudonymous comedians