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Judy Holliday
Birth name	Judith Tuvim
Born	21 June 1921 New York, USA
Died	7 June 1965 New York, New York, USA
Spouse(s)	Dave Oppenheim
Academy Awards
Best Actress 1950 Born Yesterday

Judy Holliday (June 21, 1921–June 7, 1965) was an Academy Award and Tony Award-winning American actress.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Investigated for Communism 1.4 Later Life and Death 2 Filmography 3 Stage Work 4 External links

Born Judith Tuvim ("Tuvim" is Yiddish for "Holiday") in New York City, she was the only child of Abe and Helen Tuvim, who were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Her first job was as an assistant switchboard operator at the Mercury Theatre run by Orson Welles and John Houseman. She 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. 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 wrote 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. In 1949, she was cast in a supporting role opposite Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on film 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 following year, for which 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, who was nominated for All About Eve.

In 1950, Holliday was the subject of an FBI investigaton 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 3 months. Unlike many others that were tainted by the Communist scandal, she was not blacklisted from the movie business, but she was blacklisted from performing on radio and television for almost 3 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 excellently. She used this technique to avoid giving up names of people she knew to be Communists.

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 at the age of 43, survived by her young son, Jonathan Oppenheim, her son with 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, having edited Paris is Burning, Children Underground, and Arguing the World.

Holliday has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.

• 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)

Awards
Preceded by Olivia de Havilland for The Heiress	Academy Award for Best Actress 1950 for Born Yesterday	Succeeded by Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire

• My Dear Public (1942) (with The Revuers)
• Kiss Them for Me (1945)
• Born Yesterday (1946)
• Dream Girl (1951)
• Bells Are Ringing (1956)
• Laurette (1960)
• Hot Spot (1963)

Awards
Preceded by Gwen Verdon for Damn Yankees	Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1957 for Bells Are Ringing	Succeeded by (tie) Gwen Verdon and Thelma Ritter for New Girl in Town

• Judy Holliday at the Internet Movie Database
• The Judy Holliday Resource Center
• Transcript of Judy Holliday's Senate Testimony
• Judy Holliday's FBI files