Trivia of Judy Holliday

 Trivia of Judy Holliday (21 June 1921 - 7 June 1965)

*Her first job was as an assistant switchboard operator at the Mercury Theatre, which was administered by Orson Welles and John Houseman.Holliday began her show business career in 1938 as part of a nightclub act called The Revuers. The Revuers filmed a scene for the Carmen Miranda movie Greenwich Village (1944). Although the Revuers' performance was cut, Holliday was an unbilled extra in another scene. The group disbanded in early 1944.

*In her first film role, Holliday played an airman's wife in Twentieth Century Fox’s version of the U.S. Army Air Forces' play Winged Victory (1944). She made her Broadway debut on March 20, 1945, at the Belasco Theatre in Kiss Them for Me, and was one of the recipients that year of the Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Female Actress.

*In her early monologue scene with Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday can be seen trembling. This was not acting, but nervousness. The inexperienced Holliday was terrified of performing with Hepburn.Later, Katharine Hepburn reportedly urged director George Cukor to focus the camera on Judy Holliday during a number of their shared scenes, not only because she was a fan of the new-to-movies Holliday but because it was hoped the studios would see how terrific Holliday was and cast her as the lead in Born Yesterday (1950), the role she'd created on Broadway.

*To help build up her image, particularly in the eyes of Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn, Katharine Hepburn deliberately leaked stories to the gossip columns suggesting that her performance in Adam's Rib (1949) was so good that it had stolen the spotlight from Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. This got Cohn's attention and Holliday won the part in Born Yesterday (1950).Her perform in Born Yesterday (1950) made Holliday subsequently won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy; and at the 23rd Academy Awards, won the Academy Award for Best Actress, defeating Gloria Swanson, nominated for Sunset Boulevard; Eleanor Parker, for Caged; and Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, both for All About Eve.

*She and Jack Lemmon formed a memorable comic partnership in Lemmon’s first two films, It Should Happen to You (1954) and Phffft! (1954).

*She won Broadway's 1957 Tony Award as Best Actress (Musical) for "Bells Are Ringing,".In 1960, Holliday recreated her Broadway role as Ella Peterson in movie version opposite Dean Martin.Bells Are Ringing (1960) became her last film.This movie is the only one she filmed with her last love, Gerry Mulligan. Mulligan plays as her blind date.

*Judy Holliday romantically involved with jazz musician Gerry Mulligan. After learning she had breast cancer, she stopped filming and began writing songs with him. He wrote the music and she wrote the lyrics. Some of these songs appear on the album "Holliday With Mulligan", which they recorded together in 1961. It was not released until 1980, 15 years after Holliday's death.