Celeste Holm - # 15

Celeste Holm, from one of my favorite shows Promised Land has died. She was number 15 on the list.

Oscar-winning actress Celeste Holm dies at 95

Celeste Holm, a versatile, bright-eyed blonde who soared to Broadway fame in "Oklahoma!" and won an Oscar in "Gentleman's Agreement" but whose last years were filled with financial difficulty and estrangement from her sons, died Sunday, a relative said. She was 95.


Holm had been hospitalized about two weeks ago with dehydration. She asked her husband on Friday to bring her home and spent her final days with her husband, Frank Basile, and other relatives and close friends by her side, said Amy Phillips, a great-niece of Holm's.
Holm died around 3:30 a.m. at her longtime apartment on Central Park West, located in the same building where Robert De Niro lives and where a fire broke out last month, Phillips said.

"I think she wanted to be here, in her home, among her things, with people who loved her," she said.

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Holm played everyone from Ado Annie — the girl who just can't say no in "Oklahoma!"— to a worldly theatrical agent in the 1991 comedy "I Hate Hamlet" to guest star turns on TV shows such as "Fantasy Island" and "Love Boat II" to Bette Davis' best friend in "All About Eve."

She won the Academy Award in 1947 for best supporting actress for her performance in "Gentleman's Agreement" and received Oscar nominations for "Come to the Stable" (1949) and "All About Eve" (1950).

Holm was also known for her untiring charity work — at one time she served on nine boards — and was a board member emeritus of the National Mental Health Association.

She was once president of the Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center, which treats emotionally disturbed people using arts therapies. Over the years, she raised $20,000 for UNICEF by charging 50 cents apiece for autographs.


President Ronald Reagan appointed her to a six-year term on the National Council on the Arts in 1982. In New York, she was active in the Save the Theatres Committee and was once arrested during a vigorous protest against the demolition of several theaters.

But late in her life she was in a bitter, multi-year family legal battle that pitted her two sons against her and her fifth husband — former waiter Basile, whom she married in 2004 and was more than 45 years her junior. The court fight over investments and inheritance wiped away much of her savings and left her dependent on Social Security. The actress and her sons no longer spoke, and she was sued for overdue maintenance and legal fees on her Manhattan apartment.


The future Broadway star was born in New York on April 29, 1917, the daughter of Norwegian-born Theodore Holm, who worked for the American branch of Lloyd's of London, and Jean Parke Holm, a painter and writer.

She was smitten by the theater as a 3-year-old when her grandmother took her to see ballerina Anna Pavlova. "There she was, being tossed in midair, caught, no mistakes, no falls. She never knew what an impression she made," Holm recalled years later.

She attended 14 schools growing up, including the Lycee Victor Duryui in Paris when her mother was there for an exhibition of her paintings. She studied ballet for 10 years.


Her first Broadway success came in 1939 in the cast of William Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life." But it was her creation of the role of man-crazy Ado Annie Carnes in the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's musical "Oklahoma!" in 1943 that really impressed the critics.

She only auditioned for the role because of World War II, she said years later. "There was a need for entertainers in Army camps and hospitals. The only way you could do that was if you were singing in something."


Holm was hired by La Vie Parisienne, and later by the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel to sing to their late-night supper club audiences after the "Oklahoma!" curtain fell.

The slender, blue-eyed blonde moved west to pursue a film career. "Hollywood is a good place to learn how to eat a salad without smearing your lipstick," she would say.


"Oscar Hammerstein told me, 'You won't like it,'" and he was right, she said. Hollywood "was just too artificial. The values are entirely different. That balmy climate is so deceptive." She returned to New York after several years.

Her well-known films included "The Tender Trap" and "High Society" but others were less memorable. "I made two movies I've never even seen," she told an interviewer in 1991.

She attributed her drive to do charity work to her grandparents and parents who "were always volunteers in every direction."


She said she learned first-hand the power of empathy in 1943 when she performed in a ward of mental patients and got a big smile from one man she learned later had been uncommunicative for six months.

"I suddenly realized with a great sense of impact how valuable we are to each other," she said.


In 1979, she was knighted by King Olav of Norway.


In her early 70s, an interviewer asked if she had ever thought of retiring. "No. What for?" she replied. "If people retired, we wouldn't have had Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud ... I think it's very important to hang on as long as we can."


In the 1990s, Holm and Gerald McRainey starred in the CBS's "Promised Land," a spinoff of "Touched by an Angel." In 1995, she joined such stars as Tony Randall and Jerry Stiller to lobby for state funding for the arts in Albany, N.Y. Her last big screen role was as Brendan Fraser's grandmother in the romance "Still Breathing."


Holm was married five times and is survived by two sons and three grandchildren. Her marriage in 1938 to director Ralph Nelson lasted a year but produced a son, Theodor Holm Nelson. In 1940, she married Francis Davies, an English auditor. In 1946, she married airline public relations executive A. Schuyler Dunning and they had a son, Daniel Dunning.


During her fourth marriage, to actor Robert Wesley Addy, whom she married in 1966, the two appeared together on stage when they could. In the mid-1960s, when neither had a project going, they put together a two-person show called "Interplay — An Evening of Theater-in-Concert" that toured the United States and was sent abroad by the State Department. Addy died in 1996.

Her filmography:

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1946      Three Little Girls in Blue                Miriam Harrington          

1947      Carnival in Costa Rica      Celeste

Gentleman's Agreement               Anne Dettrey     Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (2nd place)

1948      The Snake Pit     Grace   

Road House        Susie Smith        

1949      Chicken Every Sunday     Emily Hefferan

A Letter to Three Wives                 Addie Ross          Voice, Uncredited

Come to the Stable          Sister Scholastica              Nominated-Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Everybody Does It            Doris Blair Borland          

1950      Champagne for Caesar   Flame O'Neill    

All About Eve     Karen Richards Nominated-Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

1955      The Tender Trap               Sylvia Crewes    

1956      High Society       Liz Imbrie            

1961      Bachelor Flat      Helen Bushmill

1963      Hailstones and Halibut Bones      Narrator               Voice, short film

1967      Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!             Louise Halloran

1973      Tom Sawyer       Aunt Polly           

1976      Bittersweet Love              Marian Lewis    

1977      The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover          Florence Hollister            

1987      Three Men and a Baby   Mrs. Holden      

1989      Nora's Christmas Gift      Nora Richards    video

1997      Still Breathing    Ida, Fletcher's Grand Mother     

2005      Alchemy               Iris         

2012      Driving Me Crazy              Mrs. Ginsberg   

2013      College Debts     Grandma GG      Final film role

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1950      All Star Revue    Guest Actress    Episode "1.6"

1951      Lux Video Theatre            Eliza

Margaret Best   Episode: "The Pacing Goose"

Episode: "Second Sight"

1952      Schlitz Playhouse                             Episode: "Four's a Family"

Lux Video Theatre            Katherine Case Episode: "The Bargain"

1953      Lux Video Theatre            Miss Prynne       Episode: "Lost Sunday"

Hollywood Opening Night                             Episode: "Mrs. Genius"

Your Jeweler's Showcase                              Episode: "Heart's Desire"

1954      Honestly, Celeste!           Celeste Anders TV series

1955      The United States Steel Hour      Madge Collins    Episode: "The Bogey Man"

1956      Climax! Mary Miller         Episode: "The Empty Room Blues"

Sneak Preview                   TV series

Carolyn                 Carolyn Daniels TV movie

The Steve Allen Show     Mad Meggie       Episode: "2.8"

Producers' Showcase      Mad Meggie       Episode: "Jack and the Beanstalk"

1957      Schlitz Playhouse             Lettie Morgan    Episode: "The Wedding Present"

Goodyear Playhouse      Maggie Travis    Episode: "The Princess Back Home"

Zane Grey Theater           Sarah Kimball     Episode: "Fugitive"

The Yeoman of the Guard             Phoebe Meryll   TV movie

1960      The Art Carney Special                   Episode: "The Man in the Dog Suit"

The Christophers                              Episode: "Women of the Bible"

1961      Play of the Week              Virginia                 Episode: "A Clearing in the Woods"

1962      Follow the Sun Miss Bullfinch    Episode: "The Irresistible Miss Bullfinch"

Checkmate         Laraine Whitman              Episode: "So Beats My Plastic Heart"

Alcoa Premiere Laura Bennett    Episode: "Cry Out in Silence"

1963      Dr. Kildare           Nurse Jane Munson        Episode: "The Pack Rat and Prima Donna"

Burke's Law        Helen Forsythe Episode: "Who Killed the Kind Doctor?"

1964      The Eleventh Hour           Billie Hamilton   Episode "How Do I Say I Love You?"

1965      Mr. Novak           Rose Herrod       Episode: "An Elephant Is Like a Tree"

Cinderella            Fairy Godmother              TV movie

Run for Your Life               Margot Horst     Episode: "The Cold, Cold War of Paul Bryan"

Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color                Mrs. Fuller          4 episodes

The Fugitive        Flo Hagerman    Episode: "The Old Man Picked a Lemon"

1966      The Long Hot Summer   Libby Rankin       Episode: "Face of Fear"

Meet Me in St. Louis       Mrs. Smith          TV movie

1967      The Fugitive        Pearl Patton       Episode: "Concrete Evidence"

The F.B.I.             Flo Clementi       Episode: "The Executioners: Part 1"

Episode: "The Executioners: Part 2"

Cosa Nostra, Arch Enemy of the FBI          Flo Clementi       TV movie

Insight   Mrs. Berns          Episode: "Fat Hands and a Diamond Ring"

1970      The Name of the Game Irene Comdon   Episode: "The Brass Ring"

Swing Out, Sweet Land Nancy Lincoln    TV movie

1970–1971          Nancy    Abigail 17 episodes

1972      The Delphi Bureau           Sybil Van Loween             Episode: "Pilot"

1973      Medical Center Dr. Linda Wilson               Episode: "No Margin for Error"

1974      Medical Center Geraldine Stern                 Episode: "Web of Intrigue"

The Streets of San Francisco        Mrs. Shaninger Episode: "Crossfire"

The Underground Man Beatrice Broadhurst        TV movie

Death Cruise      Elizabeth Mason               TV movie

The Manhunter                                Episode: "The Truck Murders"

1976      The American Woman: Portraits of Courage         Elizabeth Cady Stanton TV movie

Captains and the Kings   Sister Angela      TV miniseries

Columbo              Mrs. Brandt        Episode: Old Fashioned Murder

1977      The Love Boat II                Eva McFarland   TV movie

The Wonderful World of Disney                 Deirdre Wainwright        Episode: "The Bluegrass Special"

Wonder Woman               Dolly Tucker       Episode: "I Do, I Do"

1978      Lucan                    Episode: "You Can't Have My Baby"

Fantasy Island    Mabel Jarvis       Episode: "The Beachcomber/The Last Whodunnit"

1979      Fantasy Island    Sister Veronica Episode: "The Look Alikes/Winemaker"

Backstairs at the White House    Mrs. Florence Harding    TV miniseries

Nominated-Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special

Trapper John, M.D.          Claudia Episode: "The Shattered Image"

The Love Boat    Estelle Castlewood          Episode: "A Good and Faithful Servant/The Secret Life of Burl Smith/Tug of War/Designated Lover"

1981      Midnight Lace    Sylvia Randall     TV movie

As the World Turns          Lauren Roberts TV series

Archie Bunker's Place     Estelle Harris      Episode: "Growing Up is Hard to Do"

Episode: "Custody"

1982      American Playhouse       Celebrity              Episode: "The Shady Hill Kidnapping"

Trapper John, M.D.          Lillie Townsend Episode: "Don't Rain on My Charade"

1983      Archie Bunker's Place     Estelle Harris      Episode: "Three Women"

This Girl for Hire               Zandra Stoneham            TV movie

1984      Jessie    Molly Hayden    TV movie

Jessie    Molly Hayden    6 episodes

The Love Boat    Florence Flanders             Episode: "Buck Stops Here, The/For Better or Worse/Bet on It"

1985      Matt Houston    Katherine Hershey           Episode: "Company Secrets"

Falcon Crest        Anna Rossini       6 episodes

1987      Murder by the Book        Claire     TV movie

Magnum, P.I.     Abigail Baldwin Episode: "The Love That Lies"

1988      Spenser: For Hire              Rose      Episode: "Haunting"

1989      CBS Summer Playhouse Samantha Orbison           Episode: "Road Show"

Polly      Miss Snow           TV movie

1989–1990          Christine Cromwell          Samantha Cromwell        4 episodes

1990      Polly: Comin' Home!       Miss Snow           TV movie

1991–1992          Loving   Isabella Alden    TV series

1992      Cheers Grandmother Gaines      Episode: "No Rest for the Woody"

1995      Great Performances                       Episode: "Talking With"

1996      Home of the Brave          Hattie Greene   TV movie

Once You Meet a Stranger            Clara      TV movie

Touched by an Angel      Hattie Greene   Episode: "Promised Land"

1996–1999          Promised Land Hattie Greene   67 episodes

1997      Touched by an Angel      Hattie Greene   Episode: "The Road Home: Part 1"

Episode: "Amazing Grace: Part 2"

1998      Touched by an Angel      Hattie Greene   Episode: "Vengeance Is Mine: Part 1"

2000      The Beat              Frances Robinson             13 episodes

2002      Third Watch       Florence               Episode: "Transformed"

2004      Whoopi                Diana     Episode: "The Squatters"

Theatre

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1938      Gloriana               Lady Mary          

1940      The Time of Your Life      Mary L

1940      Another Sun       Maria   

1940      The Return of the Vagabond       His Daughter     

1941      Eight O'Clock Tuesday    Marcia Godden

1941      My Fair Ladies   Lady Keith-Odlyn             

1942      Papa Is All            Emma  

1942      All the Comforts of Home             Fifi Oritanski      

1942      The Damask Cheek          Calla Longstreth               

1943      Oklahoma!          Ado Annie Carnes            

1944      Bloomer Girl       Evalina

1950      Affairs of State Irene Elliott        

1951      The King and I    Anna Leonowens             Replacement

1952      Anna Christie     Anna Christopherson     

1954      His and Hers       Maggie Palmer

1958      Interlock              Mrs. Price           

1958      Third Best Sport                Helen Sayre       

1960      Invitation to a March      Camilla Jablonski             

1967      Mame   Mame Dennis    Replacement

1970      Candida                Candida               

1974      Habeas Corpus Lady Rumpers   

1979      The Utter Glory of Morrissey Hall              Julia Faysle         

1991      I Hate Hamlet    Lilian Troy           

1994      Allegro Grandma Taylor               

Radio

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1946                                      Guest on The Bob Crosby Show

1950      Everybody Does It                            Episode of Screen Guild Theater

1952      Up in Central Park                            Episode of Music In the Air

1952      Foreign Affairs                   Episode of Screen Guild Theater

1953      Cluny Brown                       Episode of Star Playhouse

1976      Afterward                           Episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater