{"id":5455,"date":"2018-02-20T15:57:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T15:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/performerstuff.com\/mgs\/?p=5455"},"modified":"2018-08-23T18:32:36","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T18:32:36","slug":"diva-alert-19-libby-holman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/performerstuff.com\/mgs\/diva-alert-19-libby-holman\/","title":{"rendered":"Diva Alert #19: Libby Holman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Diva Alert #19: Libby Holman<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \"\"<\/a><\/span>

Written by Jackson Upperco<\/p>\n

February 12, 2018<\/p>\n<\/font>

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Welcome back to Diva Alert, Performer Stuff\u2019s series on Great Dames from the Golden Age of Broadway. In these posts, we\u2019re taking a look at some of the American Musical Theatre\u2019s most legendary ladies, along with their seminal stage triumphs.<\/em><\/p>\n

This dame could put over a torch song like nobody\u2019s business. That\u2019s because her life seemed to resemble one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Born in Cincinnati to a wealthy Jewish family who soon lost everything thanks to her embezzling uncle, Libby Holman moved to New York and made her Broadway debut in 1925 at the age of 21.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A brooding chanteuse prone to torch songs, Holman rocketed to stardom by spoofing her image in the landmark 1929 musical revue The Little Show, which also starred Fred Allen and Clifton Webb. The trio reunited again the next year for Three\u2019s A Crowd<\/em> (1930).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Holman was a known bisexual who had relationships with women like DuPont heiress Louisa d’Andelot Carpenter and (younger) men like actor Montgomery Clift. She married Zachary \u201cSmith\u201d Reynolds, her first (of three) husbands, in 1931.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Their union was short-lived though; in 1932, Reynolds died of a gunshot wound — moments after his wife had revealed that she was pregnant. Officially ruled a suicide, Reynolds\u2019 death caused a national scandal, with many believing either Holman or her alleged lover pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Although she returned to Broadway twice more over the next few years — and again for a short-lived solo concert with which she later toured — Holman\u2019s life remained dramatic. Her second marriage crumbled when her husband came home from war and committed suicide. Then she was professionally humiliated: fired from a new musical during its tryouts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1950, after having adopted two children, Holman\u2019s only natural son died while falling off a mountain; she never recovered from the loss. After marrying again in 1960, Holman took up political activism. Long a champion of Civil Rights (ever since her friendship with Josh White), she was devastated by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Libby Holman extinguished her torch light in 1971 — an appropriately tragic end to a life that seemed to embody all those tragic women she played and sang about on the stage. Her life was a torch song — and nobody crooned it better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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DID YOU KNOW?\u00a0<\/strong>Producer Vinton Freedley reportedly first offered the leading role in the Cole Porter musical that later became Anything Goes<\/em> (1934) to Libby Holman. When she turned it down, that part went to a rising Broadway diva named Ethel Merman.<\/p>\n

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Holman Roles You Should Know<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Various Roles in The Little Show<\/em> (1929)<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n