Oscar-winning actress Celeste Holm died at her home in New York City, according to reports citing her niece. The star of stage and screen was 95. She, was hospitalized a week ago suffering from dehydration caused by a fire in Robert De Niro’s apartment in her building, but her husband took her home to Manhattan. Holm won an Oscar for best supporting actress in Elia Kazan’s 1947 movie about anti-Semitism Gentleman’s Agreement which starred Gregory Peck. She later was also nominated in the category for All About Eve and Come To The Stable. Holm was born and raised in New York City and began acting in school plays. She studied acting in college and eventually embraced it as a career. Her first major Broadway role came in a 1940 revival of The Time of Your Life, co-starring fellow newcomer Gene Kelly. Holmes then starred in Rodgers & Hammersteien’s Broadway blockbuster Oklahoma! before her movie career took off in the late 1940s. Other movies included The Tender Trap with Frank Sinatra, High Society with Bing Crosby and The Snake Pit with Oliva de Havilland. In TV, she was nominated for Emmys for Insight and Backstairs at the White House. Holm also appeared in several TV shows during the 1970s and ’80s including Fantasy Island, Falcon Crest and Archie Bunker’s Place. She also appeared in Third Watch, Touched By An Angel and Promised Land. Holm was married five times. On her 87th birthday she wed opera singer Frank Basile who now survives her. She is also survived by two sons and three grandchildren.


Sad to hear that Celeste Holm has passed. Her Oscar worthy performances were always believable,
especially in ALL ABOUT EVE and the remake of THE PHILIDELPHIA STORY with Kelly, Crosby and
Sinatra. She was a first-class actor, and from what I understand, a first-class woman.
You mean, “High Society” the musical re-make of The Philadelphia Story.
“All About Eve”..one of the greatest dramas ever made. RIP Celeste and Thank you.
She was great and always created wonderful characters. Remember Celeste as the spymaster [!] Sybil in THE DELPHI BUREAU?
From the capital came a young man…
To uncover some worms in a can…
So they con him – they frame him…
For murder they blame him…
In turn – he eludes them…
Pursues – then eschews them…
Till he holds all the strings to the plan…
The end – more or less, Delphian!
She took the character who was manipulative and cold and made her kind of caring in a spying sort of way. If I were a spy, I’d have worked for her. RIP, Celeste Holm.
I don’t know if she ever had the opportunity to write her autobiography, but whatever she would have written would have been fascinating.
A class act all the way.
Rest peacefully, Celeste.
I remember her from way back when, sad, but we all go that way alas.
She was the best Fairy Godmother any Cinderella could ask for!
Celeste was always great. Of course there were larger and more well-known roles, but the one I loved best was her sober and great performance as Olivia de Havilland’s friend, “Grace” in “The Snake Pit.” A small role, but she was awesome.
I remember my first job when I moved here and I worked at the academy players directory from 1988 to 1991. I remember her coming into the office to renew and put in a newer picture. Classy and insightful lady. Truly from a lost era in Hollywood.
“Who wants to be a millionaire? I don’t!”
I was 7 years old and got to go backstage at “OKLAHOMA” and shake the hand of Celeste Holm.
Quite a thrill.
Dixon DeVore
She had such a natural radiant charm that her line readings seemed to be just tossed off. Check out her comedy timing in ROADHOUSE from 1948 with Ida Lupino and Richard Widmark.
When you wanted class, dignity, insight, and wisdom you cast Celeste Holm. Don’t forget her voice-over narration in “A Letter to Three Wives.” When does the massive fight over that amazing tree top duplex apartment with elevator on C.P.W. begin? (Legendary entertainment lawyer John Wharton of Paul, Weiss made her buy it originally.) Kept her Oscar on the coffee table in the living room. Persisted motoring right along, in the end though too vain to write her autobiography which I think is a mistake when you’re a public figure. If your own version isn’t out there somebody else is going to put it out there for you; it may not be pretty and may very well be be the last word on you. It would have been a great read; maybe there’s a manuscript somewhere. Not as nice and sweet a lady as she wanted everybody to believe – she was cunning (Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw this and used this best) – but R.I.P. Celeste. It was special whenever she showed up in something or anywhere for that matter. Sad to see this happen after Richard Zanuck’s death. His father said (supposedly) that whoever played the part of Anne Dettrey in “Gentleman’s Agreement” would win the Oscar. And he was right.
Didn’t Celeste Holm star in a TV sitcom titled “Honestly Celeste” in the late 1950′s??
CELESTE HOLM was a gifted film-stage-tv actress, equally adept at comedy and drama, and an enthusiastic advocate for the arts—especially the Broadway stage and regional theater.
London’s DAILY MAIL newspaper story about Holm’s death mentions that she was also known for her charity work–at one time she served on nine boards–and was a board member emeritus of the National Mental Health Association. Holm also was once president of the Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center, which treats emotionally disturbed people using arts therapies, and over the years she also raised approximately $20,000 for UNICEF by charging 50 cents apiece for her autograph.
Celeste Holm was a remarkable person, as witty and delightful and gracious as the public always believed her to be.