Judy Holliday
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Judy Holliday (June 21, 1921 – June 7, 1965) was an American actress. Born Judith Tuvim in New York City, she began her career on the stage. Her first movie was as an extra in Orson Welles's short film Too Much Johnson in 1938. She had a few more minor roles in in the mid 1940's before moving back to New York and the stage w/ The Revuers, a comedy group which included Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
She made her Broadway debut on March 20, 1945 at the Belasco Theatre in Kiss Them for Me and was one of the inaugral recipients that year of the Theatre World Award. In 1946 she was back on Broadway as the scatterbrained Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. A MGM talent scout saw her performance in 1949 and cast her opposite Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in one of the year's biggest comedies, Adam's Rib. The part gave her the chance to star in the film version of Born Yesterday the next year for which she won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress.
Holliday was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee to "explain" her Communist links, but the appearance did not blackball her career, unlike the cases of others in the movie business.
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.
In 1965 she died from breast cancer and was interred in the Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.
Filmography
- Too Much Johnson (1938) (short subject)
- Greenwich Village (1944)
- Something for the Boys (1944)
- Winged Victory (1944)
- Adam's Rib (1949)
- On the Town (1949) (voice only)
- Born Yesterday (1950)
- The Marrying Kind (1952)
- It Should Happen to You (1954)
- Phffft! (1954)
- The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956)
- Full of Life (1957)
- Bells Are Ringing (1960)
Stage Work
- My Dear Public (1942) (w./ The Revuers)
- Kiss Them for Me (1945)
- Born Yesterday (1946)
- Dream Girl (1951)
- Bells Are Ringing (1956)
- Laurette (1960)
- Hot Spot (1963)de:Judy Holliday