Judy Holliday (June 21, 1921 – June 7, 1965) was an American Academy- and Tony Award-winning 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 Green, Alvin Hammer and John Frank; one of their accompanists was Leonard Bernstein. 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, she resigned. Kanin chose Holliday as her replacement.
Garson Kanin's book on Tracy and Hepburn mentions 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 role for the film version of Born Yesterday, but only after she did a screen test (which at first was used only as a "benchmark against which to evaluate" other actresses being considered for the role). 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.
In 1950, Holliday was the subject of an FBI investigation looking into allegations that she was a Communist. The investigation "did not reveal positive evidence of membership in the Communist Party" and was concluded after three months. Unlike many others tainted by the Communist scandal, she was not blacklisted from movies, but she was blacklisted from performing on radio and television for almost three years.
In 1952, she was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to "explain" why her name had been linked to Communist front organizations. In spite of her 172 IQ, she was advised to play dumb (like some of her film characters) and did so. She used this technique to avoid giving up names of people she knew to be Communists.
In 1954, she starred with a then-rising young star Jack Lemmon for the popular comedy, It Should Happen to You. Holliday and Lemmon next starred together (in that same year) in Phffft!. Their comedic chemistry on screen made the two films into big hits.
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 the film version of Bells Are Ringing, a musical with lyrics by Comden and Green that had debuted 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.
