EVERY DAY A HOLLIDAY

Written by George Haddad-Garcia
From "Hollywood Studio" magazine October, 1981

     "Judy with you in a motion picture was not only a box-office happening," says Jack Lemmon, "but a pleasure. I've had the pleasure, and might I say, the occasional displeasure, of working with many if not most of the great ladies in our movie business, and Judy was very special. One of the nicest human beings I ever met. A pleasure to work with, because she taught me much at an early point in my career, and a pleasure to know and to talk to. And I'm here to tell you that that lady was no dumb blonde."

     The late, great Judy Holliday died in the mid-60s before reaching her 42nd birthday, a victim of cancer. Twenty years ago, in 1961, she recorded an album of 11 songs, four of them written by Holliday with Gerry Mulligan. It was to be the start of a new career for her, but news of her cancer and mastectomy put a damper on Judy's career. The album was not only not released, but completely forgotten, until DRG Records, which specializes in nostalgic Hollywood and Broadway-themed recordings, rediscoverd it, remixed it and released it in late 1980.

     "Judy did have a lovely singing voice," says William Holden, who co-starred with her, so memorably, in her Oscar-winning Born Yesterday. "She used to hum and sometimes sing on the set." Of course, most Holliday fans realize that she didn't usually speak in her famous Brooklyn accent. The album, "Holliday with Mulligan," is not, however, her first, for she participated in the cast and soundtrack recordings of "Bells Are Ringing." But it is her only solo album, featuring the four tunes she co-wrote (each one distinctive and memorable) and such classics as "The Party's Over," "Lazy," "Supper Time" and "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues."

     Also such specialty numbers as "Pass That Peace Pipe" and "It's Bad for Me," the latter from Cole Porter's Nymph Errant. DRG's address is 200 West 57th St., NYC 10019; also ask for their catalogue, full of wonderful surprises and rarities.

     Lemmon notes, "Judy, as I said, wasn't dumb at all, but she was something of an intellectual. She liked to read philosophy for pleasure, and you could tell that, beneath the low-keyed clowning, she was very sensitive and introspective. I think if she had lived, and if she managed to get out of those stereotyped roles she was partly trapped in, she could have easily proven one of our best actresses, and splendid in dramatic roles."

     Holden agrees, "She was not only funny, but touching. She was never a freak, and she was too real and sincere to have become a sex symbol, even in the early days, when she was quite a looker."

     Judy Holliday was able to become a movie star almost instantly, largely thanks to Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, who conspired to have her hired to play the blonde accused of murder in their Adam's Rib, in which Kate played a lawyer defending a female client. It took a lot of convincing, but it paid off, for Harry Cohn then cast Judy in the lead in Born Yesterday, even though she wasn't a box-office name. Yet. The rest is history.

     No less than super-playwright Tennessee Williams declares, "I saw Judy perform on the stage, but I didn't see more than few of her movies. Naturally, I saw them on TV; everywhere I go, they list her movies in the television guides, so every day's a Holliday, if you'll pardon my pun....But on the stage, she was so excellent, so moving and so instinctively right; everyone knows that my favorite stage actress was Laurette Taylor [who did his Glass Menagerie to perfection; Gertrude Lawrence, who made a hit of the song "It's Bad for Me," starred in the film version, while Hepburn did it on TV for her Emmy-winning TV debut]. But Ms. Holliday ranks right up there, very close to Ms. Taylor."

     Kate Hepburn recently said, "Judy is one of the people I miss the most, of all my friends who have passed away in the near or distant past. Her death affected me deeply; I felt as though she was a sister to me, though were weren't terribly close. But when we talked, it was so comfortable, so amusing in a lovely sort of way - I just loved her. I'm sorry we didn't work together another time..."

     Unlike many great stars of the 1950s, Judy Holliday was a very private person. She rarely dicussed her private life and shied away from publicity, although she was not a difficult or uncooperative star. The late Wyatt Cooper, author and critic, once told this writer, "Judy befriended me when I wasn't doing too well, and she was so generous of her time and spirit that I gained confidence in myself, and she really helped me out."

     "She made no demands, as some stars did and do, but she hoped that the public could accept the different facets of her. The Born Yesterday prototype haunted her, though she didn't suffer too much. But I think she regretted not being allowed more variety in her career. She once told me, 'What makes it all worthwhile, Wyatt, is the love I get from the people I work with and that I'm working for.' It was a charming sentiment, truly felt, that was typical of Judy."

     Today, thanks to film festival revivals, TV reruns and a few planned biographies of Ms. Holliday, she is becoming known to a whole new generation of movie and comedy buffs. And, hopefully, record buffs, for her album is fast becoming a cult item, despite its availability.

     Mae West once told a European journalist, "Judy Holliday? She's a fan of mine, but I also like her: she's sorta a next-door version of me. I think she's gotta big heart." When Judy replaced Jean Arthur as Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday, and made a worldwide hit, Jean reportedly said, "It couldn't have happened to a smarter dumb blonde." Or, according to everyone that knew her, a nicer one. Says Jack Lemmon, "I still miss her." So do we all.

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