--- name: "Judy Holliday" canonical: "https://film.one/person/judy-holliday" roles: ["Actor"] born: "21 June 1921" died: "7 June 1965" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-20T02:04:40.093652+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Judy Holliday Actor. Born 21 June 1921 in New York City, New York, USA. Died 7 June 1965. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 21 June 1921, New York City, New York, USA - **Died:** 7 June 1965 - **Also known as:** Judith Tuvim - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Holliday, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q253298, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0391062/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/85651 ## Streaming the US now - **The Roku Channel:** [*Born Yesterday*](https://film.one/film/born-yesterday.md) (76) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Judy Holliday > Judy Holliday played women the men around them had written off, and the joke was always on the men. In a short screen career she gave one performance, Billie Dawn in *Born Yesterday*, that still does the work of a whole filmography. There is a card game in a Washington hotel suite in *Born Yesterday* (1950), and Judy Holliday plays it the way she plays everything: not appearing to think, and thinking the whole time. Later she picks something up to read, reads it, and stops. That stop is what she did that other actors did not. She played women the men around them had decided were dim, and she let us watch the decision turn out to be wrong a beat before anyone on screen noticed. She came up in nightclubs, not pictures. From 1938 she was one of The Revuers alongside Betty Comden and Adolph Green, made her Broadway debut in *Kiss Them for Me* in 1945, and in 1946 took over from Jean Arthur as Billie Dawn in Garson Kanin's stage *Born Yesterday*. Hollywood was not sure. George Cukor gave her a supporting part in *Adam's Rib* (1949), largely to prove she could do on film what she had done on stage, and the following year she got the film of *Born Yesterday*. The rest is brief: a run of Columbia comedies through the 1950s, two of them opposite Jack Lemmon, beginning with *It Should Happen to You* (1954); a return to Broadway in *Bells Are Ringing* (1956), from her old Revuers colleagues, and its film in 1960; a last stage role in *Hot Spot* in 1963. She died in 1965, a fortnight short of 44. What works is the gap between the voice and the mind behind it. Our review of *Born Yesterday* called the voice flat and slightly down her nose, every vowel a small complaint; add the walk that tips from side to side and the embarrassed giggle, and you have a set of mannerisms that barely changed from stage to screen or from one film to the next. Critics have long noticed how quickly she could go from a laugh to something serious without dropping the character's innocence, and that is the trick: the innocence is hers, the stupidity is other people's assumption. We laughed at nearly every line in *Born Yesterday* and then, at that moment when she reads and stops, we found ourselves moved, and by nothing more than her face going still. In *Bells Are Ringing* she added songs and dancing without losing the doll-like manner. The criticism is fair. The parts were variations on one part, the brassy woman who turns out to know more than she lets on, and the films that held them were mostly small Columbia comedies. She said she was "trying to eliminate every vestige of my own personality, style, approach and get into somebody else's skin", which is a strange thing to hear from an actress whose walk you could pick out of a crowd. But the skin she got into was always the same woman's, and she never once made that woman a fool. Start with *Born Yesterday*. Most of what she could do is in it, and most of what she was allowed to do. ## Biography Judy Holliday, born Judith Tuvim, was an American actress, comedian and singer. She began her career in a nightclub act and moved into Broadway plays and musicals. Her performance as Billie Dawn in the 1946 stage production of *Born Yesterday* led to the same role in the 1950 film adaptation, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Other film credits include *Adam's Rib* (1949), *It Should Happen to You* (1954) and *Bells Are Ringing* (1960), the last of which she had originated on Broadway and for which she won a Tony Award. In 1952 she testified before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee regarding alleged communist associations. She continued working in theatre and film until her death from breast cancer in 1965. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Born Yesterday* (1950), Fi1m 76, as Billie Dawn — [page](https://film.one/film/born-yesterday.md) ## Complete filmography (16) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Too Much Johnson* (2013), as (uncredited) - *On Cukor* (2000), as Various roles (archive footage) - *That's Entertainment, Part II* (1976), as (archive footage) - *Bells Are Ringing* (1960), as Ella Peterson - *Full of Life* (1956), as Emily Rocco - *The Solid Gold Cadillac* (1956), as Laura Partridge - *Phffft* (1954), as Nina Chapman Tracey - *It Should Happen to You* (1954), as Gladys Glover - *The Marrying Kind* (1952), as 'Florrie' Keefer - *Born Yesterday* (1950), as Billie Dawn — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/born-yesterday.md) - *On the Town* (1949), as Daisy (voice) (uncredited) - *Adam's Rib* (1949), as Doris Attinger - *She Loves Me Not* (1949), as Curly - *Winged Victory* (1944), as Ruth Miller - *Something for the Boys* (1944), as Defense Plant Welder (uncredited) - *Greenwich Village* (1944), as Revuer (Uncredited) ## Gallery - ![Judy Holliday](https://film.one/media/person/1236418/gallery-e0531c0e8fe1.jpg) Judy Holliday — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Promotional_photograph_ofJudy_Holliday.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Photo of Judy Holliday. The item has no copyright markings on it as can be seen in the links above. United States Copyright Office page 2 "Visually Perceptible ](https://film.one/media/person/1236418/gallery-e55df3363759.jpg) Photo of Judy Holliday. The item has no copyright markings on it as can be seen in the links above. United States Copyright Office page 2 "Visually Perceptible — MGM, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Judy_Holliday_1960.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Publicity photo of Judy Holliday](https://film.one/media/person/1236418/gallery-a1a6acd7430a.jpg) Publicity photo of Judy Holliday — Studio Publicity, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/JUDYHolliday.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Publicity photo of William Holden and Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950)](https://film.one/media/person/1236418/gallery-3fa0a0511b21.jpg) Publicity photo of William Holden and Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950) — Studio Publicity, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/JHandWHforBY.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Judy Holliday](https://film.one/media/person/1236418/gallery-3bcb6f47ff69.jpg) Judy Holliday — Image via TMDB - ![Actress Judy Holliday clutching a telegram in her dressing room before opening of the 22nd season of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. Published caption:STAR O (1959)](https://film.one/media/person/1236418/gallery-515a9fa21b4e.jpg) Actress Judy Holliday clutching a telegram in her dressing room before opening of the 22nd season of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. Published caption:STAR O (1959) — Los Angeles Times (Original uploader was Tillman at en.wikipedia), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Judy_Holliday.jpg/1280px-Judy_Holliday.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 1 won - 1951: Best Actress (won), for *Born Yesterday* ### Other awards — 2 won - Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical 1957: Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical (won) - Theatre World Award 1945: Theatre World Award (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/judy-holliday