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Holder moved to the United States in 1954, two years after being
"discovered" by Agnes de Mille, the choreographer
daughter of director-producer Cecil B.DeMille, who saw the HolderDance Company perform in St. Thomas
in the Virgin Islands. Holder, a talented painter, sold a score of his paintings to raise
the funds to bring the Holder Dance Company to New York City in 1954 (in 1957
Holder won a Guggenheim Fellowship to study painting). He would appear with his
dance company, now titled Geoffrey Holder and Company, in New York through
1960.
On December 30, 1954, Holder made
his Broadway debut (as did Diahann Carroll) at the Alvin Theatre in the Caribbean-themed original musical "House of Flowers," with music by Harold Arlen, who also co-wrote the
book with Truman Capote. The show ran for 165 total performances, but, more
importantly, Holder met and married fellow cast member Carmen DeLavallade, a dancer.
Holder played the role of Lucky in a revival of Samuel Beckett's
"Waiting for Godot" directed by Herbert Berghof on Broadway in
January 1957. The show only lasted six performances, but it established Holder as an actor,
and he made his film debut four years later in All Night Long (1962), a modern
gloss on William Shakespeare's "Othello." His most famous role was as
the heavy "Baron Samedi" in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die
(1973), Roger Moore's first turn as 007.
Holder won the 1975 Tony
Award for Best Direction of a Musical for his staging of the Broadway
musical "The WIZ" (1975), the
all-African American retelling of "The Wizard of Oz."
He also won the Tony for best
costume design (he would be nominated again for a Tony for best costume design
for the original 1978 Broadway musical "Timbuktu!", which he also directed and choreographed). As a
choreographer,he has created dance pieces for many companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Holder
has written two books, one on folklore and
one on Caribbean cuisine. In the 1970s and 1980s, he put his striking 6'6"
presence and bass voice to good use selling various products in TV commercials,
including soft drinks.
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