Judy Holliday

Biography
Judy Holliday was an Academy- and Tony Award-winning American actress.

Born Judith Tuvim ("Tuvim" is Hebrew for "Holiday") in New York City, she was the only child of Abe and Helen Tuvim, Jewish immigrants from Russia. she attended elementary school at PS 150, a school in Sunnyside, Queens, New York. Her first job was as an assistant switchboard operator at the Mercury Theatre run by Orson Welles and John Houseman.

Holliday began her show business career in December, 1938, as part of a nightclub act called "The Revuers." The other four members of the group were Betty Comden, Adolph ...( show more

) Green, Alvin Hammer and John Frank. The Revuers were a staple of the New York nightlife scene until they disbanded in early 1944. Holliday 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. In 1946, she was back on Broadway, as the scatterbrained Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. Author Garson Kanin had written the play specifically for his friend, the brilliant but difficult Jean Arthur. Arthur played the role of Billie out-of-town, but after many complaints and illnesses, resigned. Kanin chose Holliday as her replacement. It has been widely reported that when Columbia bought the rights to film Born Yesterday, studio boss Harry Cohn wouldn't consider casting the unknown (outside of Broadway) Holliday. Kanin, together with George Cukor, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, conspired to promote Holliday by offering her a key part in the 1949 film Adam's Rib. She got rave reviews and Cohn offered her the chance to repeat her part for the film version of Born Yesterday. She won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress, beating out such formidable competitors as Gloria Swanson, who was nominated for Sunset Boulevard and Bette Davis for All About Eve.

The grave of Judy Holliday in Westchester Hills Cemetery The foot stone at Judy Holliday's grave In 1956 she starred in The Solid Gold Cadillac, and, in 1960 in Bells Are Ringing, in the role she had originated on Broadway in 1956, and for which she had won the 1957 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Holliday died from breast cancer, in 1965 at the age of 43. She was survived by her young son, Jonathan Oppenheim, and by her ex-husband, clarinetist and conductor David Oppenheim. She was interred in the Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Jonathan Oppenheim grew up to become a documentary film editor of note, editing Paris is Burning, Children Underground, and Arguing the World. Holliday has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.

Date of Birth
21 June, 1921

Place of Birth
New York, U.S.

Filmography

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Actor

That's Dancing! (1985) ... Herself (clip from "Bells Are Ringing") (archive footage)
That's Entertainment, Part II (1976) ... Clip from 'Adam's Rib' (archive footage)
Bells Are Ringing (1960) ... Ella Peterson
Full of Life (1957) ... Emily Rocco
The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) ... Laura Partridge
Phffft (1954) ... Nina Tracey nee Chapman
It Should Happen to You (1954) ... Gladys Glover

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