Celeste Holm

Good News shares in the world with sympathy for Celeste Holmes. We had the honor to meet her in our studio in Brooklyn, as she ventured out from Manhattan. She was a true American Legend.

Celeste Holm (born April 29, 1917- died July 15, 2012) was an American stage, film, and television actress, perhaps best remembered for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), as well as for her Oscar-nominated performance in All About Eve (1950). Born in New York City, Holm grew up in Long Valley, New Jersey as an only child. Her mother, Jean Parke, was an American portrait artist and author, while her father, Theodor Holm, was a Norwegian insurance adjuster for Lloyd’s of London. Holm studied acting at the University of Chicago before becoming a stage actress in the late 1930s following a brief first marriage, which produced her first child, son Ted Nelson. Holm’s first professional theatrical role was in a production of Hamlet starring Leslie Howard, and she quickly rose to prominence with her portrayal of Ado Annie in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! in 1943. After she starred in the Broadway production of Bloomer Girl, 20th Century Fox signed Holm to a movie contract in 1946, and in her first two years as a film actress Holm cemented herself immediately as a formidable performer, especially when she won an Oscar and Golden Globe for best supporting actress in Gentleman’s Agreement. After her famous performance in All About Eve, however, Holm realized she preferred live theater to movie work, and took on very few film roles over the following decade. The most successful of these were the comedy The Tender Trap (1955) and the musical High Society (1956), both co-starring Holm with Frank Sinatra. Holm starred in the TV series Honestly, Celeste! (1954-55) and was a panelist on Who Pays? (1959). In 1965, she starred alongside Lesley Ann Warren as the Fairy Godmother in the CBS television production of Cinderella. In 1970 and ’71 she was featured on NBC-TV’s “Nancy”. During the 1970s and 1980s, Holm returned more fully to screen acting, with roles in films such as Tom Sawyer, Three Men and a Baby and in television series (often as a guest star) such as Columbo and Falcon Crest. In the 1990s, Holm was a series regular on the ABC soap opera Loving as Isabella Alden #2 (1991-1992) and the CBS primetime series Promised Land (1996-1999). Celeste Holm received many honors in her lifetime: the 1968 Sarah Siddons Award for distinguished achievement in Chicago theatre; she was appointed to the National Arts Council by then-President Ronald Reagan, knighted by King Olav of Norway, and inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1992. She remained active for social causes as a spokesperson for UNICEF, and for occasional professional engagements. https://videos.whiteblox.com/gnb/secure/player.aspx?sid=47359