One-Time Sunnyside Resident Judy Holliday Honored
By Thomas Cogan

Photo Arthur Pearson, Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance Jonathan Oppenheim, son of Judy Holliday, supports his 14-year-old daughter Netalia as she pulls the covering from the plaque mounted at 39-45 44th St. in Sunnyside December 3. The plaque explains that Judy Holliday, comedic star on Broadway and in Hollywood from the mid-1940s until her death in 1965, lived with her parents in that Sunnyside house during part of her childhood and adolescence, 1926 to 1934.

Judy Holliday, comedienne, actress and singer, died of cancer in early June 1965, two weeks short of her 44th birthday. Forty years and six months later, on a cold, bright Saturday, December 3, a special tribute was conducted in Sunnyside: the unveiling of a plaque at 39-45 44th St., stating that from 1926 to 1934 she lived at that address with her parents. Later, at a reception in the Undercroft of All Saints’ Church on 46th Street, between 43rd Avenue and Queens Boulevard, the celebrants were shown some old film clips that reminded everyone, or introduced the fact to anyone not yet aware of it, that Holliday’s talent was extraordinary.

The event was the second of its kind, and once again was mainly steered by Herbert Reynolds of the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance. A year ago, Reynolds was instrumental in staging a similar ceremony, directly across the way at 40-02 44th St. There, a plaque was installed stating that Lewis Mumford, social critic and scholar of urban history, had lived at that address from 1927 to 1936. In last Saturday’s event, Holliday’s son, Jonathan Oppenheim, and his wife, Josie, assisted their daughter, Netalia, as she pulled the black plastic covering from the bronze commemoration plaque. The three also received a Judy Holliday Appreciation Day proclamation from the City Council, delivered by Councilmember Eric Gioia. Reynolds then led a tour of Lincoln Court, the large garden area behind the row of houses on 44th Street that includes number 39-45. After that, it was on to the church.

Holliday’s parents and the star, born Judith Gollomb Tuvim in Brooklyn at the beginning of summer 1921, were among the first residents of Sunnyside Gardens when they moved there in 1926. In the years that followed, young Judith attended P.S. 111 on Skillman Avenue and J.H.S. 125 on 47th Avenue. It is rumored that at the latter school, the girl who later became noted for dumb blonde roles scored exceptionally high on IQ tests. She left Sunnyside as an adolescent, attending high school in Manhattan. After that, she followed what was apparently a lifetime inclination toward a career as a performer. By the late 1930s, though still a teenager, she was a member of The Revuers, a cabaret troupe that included Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Norman Lloyd and, on piano from time to time, Leonard Bernstein. They got on the radio with their act, which widened the experience of the girl who eventually adopted the name Judy Holliday. After The Revuers broke up, she, like Lloyd, went off to Hollywood, though the only roles she managed to land were small. Returning to New York, she achieved theatrical success in 1945 as a good-time girl in “Kiss Them for Me”, based on Frederick Wakeman’s novel, Shore Leave . It got her some awards and made her sufficiently prominent to be called on the following year, when movie actress Jean Arthur was having trouble out of town with her stage role in a comedy scheduled for Broadway. The show was called “Born Yesterday”, and in it, Arthur was cast in the role of Billie Dawn, the dimwitted mistress of a junk dealer and war profiteer. Arthur had demonstrated herself unsuitable for the part, but her emergency replacement took to it immediately.

“Born Yesterday” ran for more than 1,000 performances and made Judy Holliday famous. At the church reception Saturday, attendees were shown a scene from the movie version, while learning that her path to that part was not an easy one. Her Broadway co-star, actor and radio announcer Paul Douglas, went on to Hollywood and a contract at 20th Century-Fox, but the rights to “Born Yesterday” were bought by Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures, who cast Broderick Crawford to play the junk dealer. Judy was not contracted to anybody, but at Columbia, Cohn also controlled Rita Hayworth, and since she was a movie star and not merely famous for Broadway, he had her in mind as Billie. A combination of Hayworth’s tempestuous private life and Katharine Hepburn’s enthusiasm for Judy Holliday might have worked in the latter’s favor. Hepburn allegedly got Judy into the cast of her latest picture with Spencer Tracy, “Adam’s Rib”, in an attempt to showcase her for Harry Cohn. If that is true, it was probably a more brilliant move than even Hepburn could have imagined. In “Adam’s Rib”, Judy played the part of a neglected housewife who caught her husband in adultery and shot him. Tracy played the wounded husband’s attorney, and Hepburn, his wife, the attorney for the ballistic Judy. In a scene shown to those at the All Saints’ reception, Judy talked to Hepburn and a legal stenographer, explaining her marriage and the events that led her to shoot her husband. To call it a triumph of upstaging or scene stealing is utterly inadequate; it is an amazing performance, and on Saturday it left the audience laughing and applauding hard. In 1949, it perhaps persuaded Harry Cohn to leave Rita Hayworth to Aly Khan and sign Judy Holliday. She was allowed to recreate her Broadway role on screen, and as a result won an Oscar for best actress of 1950, beating out Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson, among others.

In the church, comedian Eddie Lawrence gave a live tribute for Holliday, while Hal Linden sent a filmed one from California. Lawrence, who in 1956 was deploying his “Old Philosopher” act on records, radio and television while also playing in “Bells Are Ringing” with Holliday, praised her professionalism. Linden, who joined that Broadway musical late in its run, said she was “probably the most generous actress I’ve ever worked with.” “Bells Are Ringing” a comedy about an answering service operator and her search for true love, was written for Holliday by her old associates, Comden and Green. It brought her back to Broadway and was the material for the 1960 movie that proved to be her last. The All Saints’ audience saw regular scenes from that movie but also several musical numbers that were left out of the film version. All of it was joyous and glorious.