Celeste Holm was born and raised in New York City.
Her father was a Norwegian-born insurance executive and her mother was a portrait artist and author. When she was about three years old, she was taken to see a performance by the dancer Anna Pavlova and decided she wanted to produce "the same effect of rejoicing on an audience". She studied ballet for 14 years while attending schools in Holland and France, before going on to a drama degree at the University of Chicago.
She graduated from University High School for Girls in Chicago, where she performed in many school stage productions. She then studied drama at the University of Chicago before becoming a stage actress in the late 1930s.
She began performing as a teenager in school plays and later in college before taking up acting as a profession.
Holm's first professional theatrical role was in a production of Hamlet starring Leslie Howard.
Her first major Broadway role came in a 1940 revival of "The Time of Your Life," co-starring fellow newcomer Gene Kelly, and by 1943 she had earned wide recognition portraying Ado Annie in Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!".
The role that got her the most recognition from critics and audiences was Ado Annie in the flagship Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! in 1943.
Like many theater actors, Holm went to Hollywood. In 1946, 20th Century Fox signed Holm to a movie contract. She won the role in director Elia Kazan's tale of anti-semitism, "Gentleman's Agreement," that won her the best supporting actress Oscar.
In 1947 she won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in Gentleman's Agreement.
In Road House (1948), she performed with her customary wit, but had far less to do than Richard Widmark, who was billed below her. She finally got her first starring roles in three films in 1949: as dreamer Dan Dailey's practical wife in Chicken Every Sunday; as a tennis-playing nun in Come to the Stable, who despite the handicap of her habit, lobs, volleys and smashes her way to victory; and utilising her talent for light comedy in Everybody Does It, as a woman who wants to sing opera but can't, and whose husband doesn't but can. She went on to work on several movies including 1950's "All About Eve,"
After All About Eve, the dictatorial head of Fox, Darryl F Zanuck, fired Holm because she insisted on a salary increase, and then, according to Holm, "he called the head of every other studio and said he had fired me because I was too difficult to work with". As a result, MGM turned her down for the role of Gene Kelly's patron in An American in Paris (1951), since she was "too costly". The less starry Nina Foch was cast instead, and Holm did not make a film for five years.
So she returned to her first love, Broadway. Over the years, Holm mastered the stage and screen, and worked in numerous television series of the 1970s and 1980s, including "Fantasy Island," "Falcon Crest" and "Archie Bunker's Place."
The most successful of these were the comedy The Tender Trap (1955) and the musical High Society (1956), both of which co-starred Frank Sinatra.
Celeste Holm, died at home in New York City, age 95, according to reports citing her niece.
Her father was a Norwegian-born insurance executive and her mother was a portrait artist and author. When she was about three years old, she was taken to see a performance by the dancer Anna Pavlova and decided she wanted to produce "the same effect of rejoicing on an audience". She studied ballet for 14 years while attending schools in Holland and France, before going on to a drama degree at the University of Chicago.
She graduated from University High School for Girls in Chicago, where she performed in many school stage productions. She then studied drama at the University of Chicago before becoming a stage actress in the late 1930s.
She began performing as a teenager in school plays and later in college before taking up acting as a profession.
Holm's first professional theatrical role was in a production of Hamlet starring Leslie Howard.
Her first major Broadway role came in a 1940 revival of "The Time of Your Life," co-starring fellow newcomer Gene Kelly, and by 1943 she had earned wide recognition portraying Ado Annie in Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!".
The role that got her the most recognition from critics and audiences was Ado Annie in the flagship Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! in 1943.
Like many theater actors, Holm went to Hollywood. In 1946, 20th Century Fox signed Holm to a movie contract. She won the role in director Elia Kazan's tale of anti-semitism, "Gentleman's Agreement," that won her the best supporting actress Oscar.
In 1947 she won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in Gentleman's Agreement.
In Road House (1948), she performed with her customary wit, but had far less to do than Richard Widmark, who was billed below her. She finally got her first starring roles in three films in 1949: as dreamer Dan Dailey's practical wife in Chicken Every Sunday; as a tennis-playing nun in Come to the Stable, who despite the handicap of her habit, lobs, volleys and smashes her way to victory; and utilising her talent for light comedy in Everybody Does It, as a woman who wants to sing opera but can't, and whose husband doesn't but can. She went on to work on several movies including 1950's "All About Eve,"
After All About Eve, the dictatorial head of Fox, Darryl F Zanuck, fired Holm because she insisted on a salary increase, and then, according to Holm, "he called the head of every other studio and said he had fired me because I was too difficult to work with". As a result, MGM turned her down for the role of Gene Kelly's patron in An American in Paris (1951), since she was "too costly". The less starry Nina Foch was cast instead, and Holm did not make a film for five years.
So she returned to her first love, Broadway. Over the years, Holm mastered the stage and screen, and worked in numerous television series of the 1970s and 1980s, including "Fantasy Island," "Falcon Crest" and "Archie Bunker's Place."
The most successful of these were the comedy The Tender Trap (1955) and the musical High Society (1956), both of which co-starred Frank Sinatra.
Celeste Holm, died at home in New York City, age 95, according to reports citing her niece.
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