Libby Holman

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Elizabeth Lloyd Holzman, better known as Libby Holman, (1904 – 1971), an American singer and actress who gained notoriety for her complicated and unconventional personal life.

Early life

Elizabeth Lloyd Holzman was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the daughter of a lawyer and stockbroker Alfred Holzman and his partner Rachel Florence Workum Holzman. She was Jewish, but not religiously raised. Marion H. Holzman and her son Alfred Paul Holzman were among their other children.

After Holman's uncle Ross Holzman embezzled nearly $1 million of their stock brokerage company, the wealthy family became dissatisfied in 1904. Around World War I, Alfred changed the family name from Holzman to Holman owing to anti-German sentiments. Libby graduated from Hughes High School in June 11, 1920, at the age of 16. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati on June 16, 1923. Holman later postponed two years from her age, claiming she was born in 1906, the year she gave the Social Security Administration as the year of her birth.

Personal life

Holman was known for her bold personality, in industry, press, and among friends. She was often featured in gossip columns, and she was often referred to in news as "the dark purple menace." Memories of associates, acquaintances, and coworkers on the stage manner and individuality she was known for. Howard Dietz, a friend and colleague who referred to her as "the swarthy, sloe-eyed houri," recalled: "The swarthy, sloe-eyed houri."

Leonard Sillman was also reminded of her: she was recalled.

Libby Holman had a variety of friendships with both men and women during her lifetime, including Jeanne Eagels, Tallulah Bankhead, Josephine Baker, and, later in her life, writer Jane Bowles. Although friends suspected her to be a "ball breaker" with men, she was tender and intimate in her same-sex affairs. Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, DuPont's most well-known girl, was her most recognizable friendship. The couple's marriage didn't last until Holman's death in 1971; during Libby's Broadway career, they would go out to parties and jaunts in Harlem clad in bowler hats, joined by other lesbian and bisexual contemporaries, including Tallulah Bankhead, Beatrice Lillie, Joan Crawford, and Marilyn Miller. Carpenter was expected to play a significant part in Holman's lifetime. They raised their children and lived together, and were warmly accepted by their theater companions. She scandalized some younger men, such as American actor Montgomery Clift, whom she mentored, by dating much younger people.

Holman was concerned with one particular, Zachary Smith Reynolds, a hobbyist aviator and the successor to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco firm. He was known as just "Smith" to friends and family. They met in Baltimore, Maryland, in April 1930, after he saw her perform in The Little Show. He begged his friend Dwight Deere Wiman, the show's producer, to introduce him to her. In Holman's friend group, he pursued her around the world in his plane and became known as "Smitty, the traveling bear," referring to his pet-like dedication to following her around the world. Although Holman's relatives didn't like Reynolds, who was moody and difficult to talk to, they accepted his presence as he paid for the entourage's trips to New York speakeasies and nightclubs. Both the couple argued often and would occasionally devolve into fights in front of Holman's circle of friends. Reynolds threatened suicide to Holman on several occasions; he once wrote: "Darling Angel" in a letter sent while on an aviation journey. If you weren't going to watch the show, I would happily come home. If you would do the same for me, I'll happily give up this trip or anything I have to give all of my time to you. Well, if I get to the point where I simply can't bear it without you for another minute, well, there's the old Mauser with just a few cartridges in it. I've gotta have my inning. Another team has come to bat," says the coach.

Despite the tempestuous nature of their union, Holman and Reynolds married in 1931 in the parlor of the Justice of the Peace's house in Monroe, Michigan. Holman was desperate for Holman to leave her acting career. She took a one-year leave of absence in order to remain at the Reynolds family's home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Charles Gideon Hill Jr.'s childhood pal, Albert "Ab" Bailey Walker, and Holman's cousin, actress Blanche Yurka, died of a head gunshot wound on the morning of July 6. Witness accounts were inebriated and muddled, as many witnesses were inebriated. Holman said she was unable to recall much of the night or the following day; the numerous testimonies given by Walker in the inquest contradicted each other. The shooting was declared a suicide by authorities, but a coroner's probe found it not guilty.

The murder was front-page news, and the local sheriff leaked details to the press, sparking more confusion. At the Rockingham County Courthouse in Wentworth, North Carolina, a Carpenter paid Holman's $25,000 bail. Holman wore a heavy veil and dark costume, and bystanders and journalists mistook her for black or mixed race, a common mistake due to her olive skin tone. Holman left Cincinnati to seek the assistance of her father, who was a prosecutor. Fearing more scandal, the Reynolds family contacted the local authorities and had the charges dismissed. Holman gave birth to Christopher Smith "Topper" Reynolds on January 10, 1933.

Holman will suffer with Reynolds' death until the end of her life. She died of suicide by suicide on June 18, 1971. On June 22, Ned Rorem, a former lover, was spotted in his diary.

Benjamin Bradshaw's biography says that Holman was unable to recall what happened. Bradshaw relates from interviews with still-living close friends that Holman called them on the phone in a panic: "She told Louisa [Carpenter] that the Reynolds family was behaving cruel to her, as if they suspected that they had something to do with Smith's death. However, Libby was unable to recall much. "I was so inebriated last night,' she wrote, "I't know if I shot him or not."

Milt Machlin, a journalist, looked at Reynolds' death and said he committed suicide. Holman was a victim of local authorities' anti-Semitism. The district attorney prosecuting the lawsuit told Machlin that she was innocent, and that if the trial had gone to trial, there may have been leo Frank's violence.

The 1933 film Sing, Sinner, Sing was loosely based on the rumors surrounding Reynolds' death, as well as Reckless and Written on the Wind.

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Theatrical career

In 1924, Holman left her hometown to pursue acting in New York City. She first attended classes at Columbia University in an all-women's dormitory at a YWCA. Polly Adler, a female pimp, started working in the winter when her savings were inadequate. Adler arranged her shift schedule to accommodate her classes. "No." she said about Holman: "Every afternoon she would arrive after her classes, carrying her schoolbooks, wearing the short skirts, oxfords, and beet, and finally settled down to work."

The Fool's first theater performance was in New York. The Fool's author, Channing Pollack, recognized Holman's abilities immediately and suggested that she pursue a career in theater. She followed Pollock's lead and became a success straight away. Producer Leonard Sillman explains in his autobiography That's Why Lies Leonard Sillman: Straightened Out at Last That the name Libby was much better than her legal one, and under my gentle prodding, 24 hours a day, she changed it." "The Statue of Libby" was her nicknamed by her father.

She appeared in The Sapphire Ring in 1925 at the Selwyn Theatre, which then ended after 13 performances. Elizabeth Holman was billed as Elizabeth Holman. She made her big break when performing with Clifton Webb and Fred Allen in the 1929 Broadway revue The Little Show, in which she first performed the blues number "Moanin' Low" by Ralph Rainger, which earned her a dozen curtain calls on opening night and became her signature song. "Can't We Be Friends?" she performed on the Kay Swift and Paul James song "Can't We Be Friends?" also on the program. She became known as Broadway's "premier torch singer."

In the program Three's a Crowd, which also starred Allen and Webb, Holman introduced "Something to Remember By" the Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz standard. Several Broadway appearances included The Garrick Gaietes (1925), Merry Go Round (1927), Rainbow (1931), Ned Wayburn's Gambols (1934), You Never Know (1934), Ned Wayburn's (1936), and her self-produced one-woman revue Blues, Ballads, and Sin-Songs (1954).

The strapless dress, one of Holman's signature styles, has been credited with originating or being one of the first high-profile wearers.

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