Celeste Holm, the versatile actress, who shot to fame on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein production of original musical "Oklahoma!" in 1943 and five years later won an Oscar for Best Actress in the historical film drama "Knight," died Sunday. He was 95 years.
Holm, who over 70 years in the acting career performing in nightclubs, including, died in his apartment on Central Park West in New York, said her husband, Frank Basile.
I had just spent two weeks in a hospital where he was found to be dehydrated and ended up suffering a heart attack. He asked to bring home on Friday, said Basile.
Before admission Holm, briefly a couple had been living away from home because of smoke damage from a fire in a flat actor Robert De Niro in the same building.
"My wife was an extraordinary woman," said Basile. "He lived his life with such grace and dignity."
Holm has had great success on Broadway, 10 productions in the back when he was elected in the starring role of the man making crazy Ado Annie in "Oklahoma!", In which he sang "I Say No Cain 't "
"Every good actress playing a butch crazy, but Celeste Holm played Ado Annie with a mischievous wink in the eye that made her irresistible character," Miles Krueger, president of the Institute based in Los Angeles of the American musical, he was a child when he saw Holm in the role, told The Times in 2007. "It was so beautiful."
Holm's work on Broadway, including the lead in a successful 1944 musical "Bloomer Girl," has led to a long term contract with 20th Century Fox, where his first two films were musical comedy "Three girls in blue" and "Carnival in Costa Rica."
Then came his "gentleman's agreement", his third film, the groundbreaking 1947 drama directed by Elia Kazan and starring Gregory Peck as a journalist that adopting a Jewish identity to explain their first-hand experience in dealing with anti-Semitism.
Kazan fought to melt Holm in the role of the brilliant and sophisticated fashion magazine editor Anne Dettrey. The studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, Holm told the Times in 1998, considered only as a musical comedy actor.
"So that made me make the big emotional scene for the first time such a test," he said. "I knew it was not a test."
Critics see the representation of Dettrey Holm.
"In fact the Academy in the class to win the support is Celeste Holm, who brings joy and happiness, as well as common sense, the screen is completely captivating in its interpretation of its role as a friend to all," wrote the Los Angeles Times film critic Edwin Schallert in his review of the film, which also won the Oscar for Best Film and Best Director.
Holm has received two other Best Actress Oscar nomination, while under contract with Fox - for playing a nun in the 1949 drama "Speak bells" and play the best friend old star Bette Davis' Margo Channing in the Broadway classic 1950 backstage drama "All About Eve."
But he returned to Hollywood in the mid 1950's to play support roles in two MGM musicals: "The single and love," starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds, and "High Society" with Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra.
He played Aunt Polly in the film version of the 1973 musical "Tom Sawyer" and has appeared in such films as "Three Men and a Baby."
A 1992 inductee into the Hall of Fame American Theatre, Holm has appeared frequently on Broadway, including taking the lead role in the original production of "Mame" in 1967.
On television, he starred in the short-lived 1954 comedy "Honestly Celeste" and played a minor role in the 1970-1971 sitcom "Nancy."
He also made frequent appearances and played the fairy Madrina the 1965 TV musical production of "Cinderella" starring Lesley Ann Warren in the title role.
Holm has received three Emmy nominations, including a 1979 nomination for her supporting role in the miniseries "Backstairs at the White House."
He spent one season in the primetime soap opera "Falcon Crest" in mid 1980 and a year later, in the soap opera "The Heart" in 90 years. I played Patty Greene, compassionate and wise grandmother "Promised Land", the dramatic adventure series 1996-1999 of the family.
An only child, Holm was born in New York April 29, 1917. The Norwegian was born on his father, Theodor Holm, has worked with the American branch of Lloyd's of London and his mother, Jean (Parke) Holm, was a painter of portraits and American writer.
"I think if you do what you like, you go through everything," he told the Asbury Park Press newspaper in 2007. "I knew I wanted to work at 6."
Holm, who has studied singing, dancing and acting like a child, she studied acting at the University of Chicago.
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