Libby Holman
Libby Holman (May 23, 1904 – June 18, 1971) was an
American torch singer and
stage actress who also achieved notoriety for her complex and unconventional personal life.
Elizabeth Lloyd Holzman was born May 23, 1904, in
Cincinnati, Ohio to a Jewish lawyer and
stockbroker, Alfred Holzman (August 20, 1867 - June 14, 1947) and his wife, Rachel Florence Workum Holzman (October 17, 1873 - April 22, 1966). Their other children were daughter Marion H. Holzman (January 25, 1901 - December 13, 1963) and son Alfred Paul Holzman (March 9, 1909 - April 19, 1992). In 1904, the wealthy family grew destitute after Holman's uncle Ross Holzman embezzled nearly $1 million of their stock brokerage business. At some point, Alfred changed the family name from Holzman to Holman.
She graduated from
Hughes High School on June 11, 1920, at the age of 16. She graduated from the
University of Cincinnati on June 16, 1923, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Libby Holman later subtracted two years from her age. insisting she was born in 1906. She gave the Social Security Administration 1906 as the year of her birth.
In the summer of 1924, Holman left for
New York City, where she first lived at the Studio Club. Her first theater job in New York was in the road company of
The Fool.
Channing Pollock, the writer of
The Fool, recognized Holman's talents immediately and advised her to pursue a theatrical career. She followed Pollock's advice and soon became a star. An early stage colleague who became a longtime close friend was future film star
Clifton Webb, then a dancer. He gave her the nickname, "The Statue of Libby." Her
Broadway theatre debut was in the play
The Sapphire Ring in 1925 at the
Selwyn Theatre, which closed after thirteen performances. She was billed as Elizabeth Holman. Her big break came while she was appearing with Clifton Webb and Fred Allen in the 1929 Broadway revue
The Little Show, in which she first sang the blues number, "Moanin' Low" by
Ralph Rainger), which earned her a dozen curtain calls on opening night, drew raves from the critics and became her signature song.
Also in that show she sang the
Kay Swift and
Paul James song, "Can't We Be Friends?" The following year, Holman introduced the
Howard Dietz and
Arthur Schwartz standard "Something to Remember You By" in the show
Three's a Crowd, which also starred Allen and Webb.
Other Broadway appearances included
The Garrick Gaieties (1925),
Merry-Go-Round (1927),
Rainbow (1928),
Ned Wayburn's Gambols (1929),
Revenge with Music (1934),
You Never Know (1938, score by Cole Porter), and the self-produced one-woman revue
Blues, Ballads and Sin-Songs (1954).
Holman enjoyed a variety of intimate relationships with both men and women throughout her lifetime.
Her famous
lesbian lovers included the DuPont heiress
Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, actress
Jeanne Eagels and modernist writer
Jane Bowles. Carpenter was to play a significant part throughout Holman's lifetime. They raised their children and lived together and were openly accepted by their theater companions. She scandalized some by dating much younger men, such as fellow American actor
Montgomery Clift, whom she mentored.
Holman took an interest in one fan,
Zachary Smith Reynolds, the heir to the
R. J. Reynolds's tobacco company. He was smitten with her from the start, despite their seven-year age difference. They met in
Baltimore, Maryland in April 1930 after Reynolds saw Holman's performance in a road company staging of the play
The Little Show. Reynolds begged friend
Dwight Deere Wiman, who was the show's producer, for an introduction to Holman. Reynolds pursued her all around the world in his plane. With the persuasion of her former lover, Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, Holman and Reynolds, who went by his middle name, married on Sunday, November 29, 1931. Reynolds wanted Holman to abandon her acting career, she consented by taking a one-year leave of absence. During this time, however, his conservative family was unable to bear Holman and her group of theater friends, who at her invitation often visited
Reynolda, the family estate near
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Accusations and arguments among them were common.
In 1932, during a 21st birthday party Reynolds gave at
Reynolda for his friend and flying buddy Charles Gideon Hill, Jr., a first cousin to Reynolds's first wife Anne Ludlow Cannon Reynolds, Holman revealed to her husband that she was pregnant. A tense argument ensued. Moments later, a shot was heard. Friends soon discovered Reynolds bleeding and unconscious with a gunshot wound to the head. Authorities initially ruled the shooting a
suicide, but a coroner's inquiry ruled it a murder. Holman and Albert Bailey "Ab" Walker, a friend of Reynolds's and a supposed lover of Holman's, were indicted for murder.
Louisa Carpenter paid Holman's $25,000 bail in
Wentworth, North Carolina, appearing in such mannish clothes that bystanders and reporters thought she was a man. The Reynolds family contacted the local authorities and had the charges dropped for fear of scandal. Holman gave birth to the couple's child, Christopher Smith "Topper" Reynolds, on January 10, 1933.
Journalist Milt Machlin investigated the death of Smith Reynolds and argued that Reynolds committed suicide. In his account Holman was a victim of the anti-Semitism of local authorities, and the district attorney involved with the case later told Machlin that she was innocent.
In 1934, Broadway producer Vinton Freedley offered Holman the starring role in the
Cole Porter musical
Anything Goes, but she declined.
Holman married her second husband, film and stage actor Ralph (pronounced "Rafe") Holmes, in March 1939. He was twelve years her junior. She had previously dated his older brother,
Phillips Holmes. In 1940, both brothers, who were half-Canadian, joined the
Royal Canadian Air Force. Phillips was killed in a collision of two military planes in August 1942. When Ralph returned home in August 1945, the marriage quickly soured and they soon separated. On November 15, 1945, Ralph Holmes was found in his
Manhattan apartment, dead of a
barbiturate overdose at age 29.
Holman adopted two sons, Timmy (born October 18, 1945), and Tony (born May 19, 1947). Her natural son Christopher ("Topper") died on August 7, 1950 after falling while mountain climbing. Holman had given him permission to go mountain climbing with a friend on
California's highest peak,
Mount Whitney, not knowing that the boys were ill-prepared for the adventure. Both died. Those close to Holman claim she never forgave herself. In 1952 she created the Christopher Reynolds Foundation in his memory.
In the 1950s, Holman worked with her accompanist, Gerold Cook, on researching and rearranging what they called earth music. It was primarily
blues and
spirituals that were linked to the
African American community. Holman had always been involved in what later became known as the
Civil rights movement. During World War II, she tried to book shows for the servicemen with her friend,
Josh White, but they were turned down on the grounds that "we don’t book mixed company."
In 1959, through the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, she underwrote a trip to
India by
Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife,
Coretta Scott King, both of whom became close friends with Holman and her husband, Louis Schanker. Holman also contributed to the defense of
Dr. Benjamin Spock, the pediatrician and writer arrested for taking part in antiwar demonstrations.
Her third and last husband was well known artist/sculptor
Louis Schanker. They married on December 27, 1960. Although Holman did not have to work after her marriage to Reynolds, she never completely gave up her career, making records and giving recitals. One of her last performances was at the
United Nations in New York in 1966. She performed her trademark song, "Moanin' Low."
For many years, Holman reportedly suffered from depression over the deaths of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, the recent presidential election loss by
Eugene McCarthy, and the illness and deterioration of her friend
Jane Bowles. She also was considered never the same after the death of
Montgomery Clift. Friends said that she lost some of her vitality.
On June 18, 1971, Holman was found nearly dead in the front seat of her
Rolls Royce by her household staff. She was taken to the hospital where she died hours later.
Holman's death was officially ruled a suicide due to acute
carbon monoxide poisoning.
Few of Holman's friends believed the coroner's report that she had committed suicide.
They questioned how the slight, aging Holman could open and close the heavy, manually-operated garage door.
Holman's papers are at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center of Boston University. In 2001, a successful effort was made by local citizens to save her Connecticut estate, Treetops, from development. It straddles the border of Stamford and Greenwich. As a result, the pristine grounds were preserved. Many rooms in the mansion have been restored. In 2006, the Treetops Chamber Music Society’s annual concert series made Louis Schanker's studio its home.
Not a huge list, today....just a nice little selection of her songs over the course of her career...........
All by myself
Am I blue
Baby baby
Body and soul
Can't we be friends
Fare Thee well
Find me a primitive man
Girl with the pre-fabricated heart
Good Mornin' blues
Hansome winsome Johnny/On top of old smokey
He's a good man to have around
I may be wrong
I'm cooking breakfast for the one I love
I'm doing what I'm doing for love
I'm one of God's children
Love for sale
Moanin' low
Something to remember you by
The house of the rising sun
The man I love
What is this thing called love
When a woman loves a man
When the sun goes down
When you only love one
Why was I born
You, the night and the music
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