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Celeste Holm
Academy Award Winning Actress
Live Web cast June 29, 2001 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT
 Listen to the event
Any woman cast in the role of Ado Annie in
Oklahoma! has had to compete with Celeste Holm,
who first incarnated the boy-crazy “girl who cain’t
say no” in the original 1943 Broadway production. The
Oscar-winning actress best known for her excellent
supporting roles has spent most of her 82 years on the
stage and on the big and little screens. Out of the
limelight, she’s a staunch champion of the arts and
supporter of children’s programs and other social
causes.
She made her Broadway debut at age 19 in The Time of
Your Life, and less than a decade later appeared
onscreen for the first time. In 1947, she won a Best
Supporting Actress Oscar for her third film,
Gentleman’s Agreement, Elia Kazan’s look at
socially accepted anti-Semitism, which also took the
Best Picture Oscar. Within three years, she garnered
two more nominations for her role as a nun trying to
raise money for a children’s hospital in Come to
the Stable (1949), and for All About Eve, a
classic drama about women’s choices in life that was
named the Best Picture of 1950. She also received
critical acclaim for her portrayal of an asylum inmate
who befriends a woman suffering from a nervous
breakdown in the drama The Snake Pit.
Holm’s interest in social issues continues offstage.
Since 1951, she’s been a stalwart supporter of UNICEF,
and is known for asking autograph-seekers to make a
50-cent donation to the children’s fund. The New York
native is also the chair of Arts Horizon, a nonprofit
that brings music and art to some 450,000 school
children in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Dame Holm, who was knighted by the King of Norway, has
also served as a member of the Governing Board of the
Mental Health Association, president of the Creative
Arts Rehabilitation Center, chair of the New Jersey
Film Commission, and board member of the Actor's Fund.
A Hollywood actress whose films are now often
considered “classics,” she co-starred with Gregory
Peck, Bette Davis, Gene Kelly, Bing Crosby, Louis
Armstrong and Marilyn Monroe, and worked the boards
with Frank Sinatra in the musicals The Tender
Trap and High Society. Holm began working
in television in the 1950s, appearing on numerous
network series, specials and made-for-TV movies. She
received an Emmy nomination for her performance in the
miniseries Backstairs at the White House. Her
more recent films include roles in Three Men and A
Baby and Still Breathing.
Related Links:
UNICEF
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