Celeste Holm

Celeste Holm was an acclaimed American stage, film and television actress, who was born on April 29th, 1917, in New York Click to look into! >> Read More... City, New York, United States. As a child, she was raised in Manhattan but due to her parents’ occupation, she had to travel often and thus attended various schools in different countries like the Netherlands, France and the United States. She meritoriously graduated from the University High School for Girls in Chicago, a place where she had performed in many school stage productions and found her calling in the same. She then ventured to further study drama at the University of Chicago and finally became a stage actress around the late 1930s. Holm appeared on stage with her first professional theatrical role in a production of Hamlet. She bagged her first major part on Broadway in William Saroyan's revival of The Time of Your Life (1940). But in 1943, she received the most critical recognition and audience appreciation for her role as Ado Annie in the premiere production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! Then in 1946, 20th Century Fox signed her on for a movie contract. This led to her film debut in Three Little Girls in Blue. After showcasing her talent in another supporting role in All About Eve, Holm realised that she preferred live theatre over movies, and thus begun accepting only a few select film roles over the next decade. The most successfully outstanding of these movies were the comedy The Tender Trap (1955) and the musical High Society (1956). She also made several appearances on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom.

She finally made her last appearance on television in the CBS television series Promised Land Click to look into! >> Read More... (1996–99). She won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in Gentleman's Agreement in 1947. She is also a lifetime member of The Actors Studio. In 1968, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for distinguished achievement in Chicago theatre. Later, she was appointed to the National Arts Council by then-President Ronald Reagan. Consequently, she was appointed Knight, First Class of the Order of St. Olav by King Olav of Norway in 1979, and was finally inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1992. She was very active in social causes and was a spokesperson for UNICEF. Then, from 1995, she became Chairman of the Board of Arts Horizons, a not-for-profit arts-in-education organization. In 1995, Holm's had been yet again inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame honouring her further. Jubilantly, in 2006, Holm was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the SunDeis Film Festival at Brandeis University, adding to her career the final accolade she deserved. Holm had married five times in her lifetime and had two sons with two different husbands. Her last husband was Frank Basile, whom she married at the age of 41. Soon after their marriage, Holm and Basile were tied in a lawsuit which began a five-year battle with her sons. Unfortunately, in June 2012, Holm was admitted to New York's Roosevelt Hospital with severe dehydration. On July 13th, 2012, she suffered a heart attack in the facility and died at her Central Park West apartment two days after, on July 15th, 2012.