World-acclaimed dancer, choreographer, actor, designer and painter Geoffrey Lamont Holder, 84, died on Sunday in Manhattan, USA. Holder’s final request was for his life support to be disconnected at 4 pm on Sunday, a request that was honoured. In a lengthy tribute in the New York Times yesterday, Charles M Mirotznik, a spokesman for the family, said Holder died of complications of pneumonia. His death is being widely reported in the international media.
Standing a statuesque six foot, six inches, Holder rose to fame via his amazing dancing and acting abilities, his full-bodied laugh and his signature deep voice. Though Trinidadian, he was regarded as Hollywood and Broadway’s ultimate Caribbean man. In New York at the time of Holder’s death, his nephew David Boothman said: “I travelled to New York on Saturday, October 4, the anniversary of my mom’s passing.” Boothman’s mother was Geoffrey Holder’s sister Marjorie. He said: “She was cremated the day of her birthday. My grandfather’s birthday was October 3, the date Geoffrey had decided and was ready to go. “He was convinced by my uncle Léo (in fact David’s cousin) to hold on till Sunday because my sister Lisa and my daughter Lani, my granddaughter Olivia Marjorie and I (the Trinidad family) were flying in.
“On their way to the party, with Lisa and Lani, Besame Mucho was playing on the train. That was our mother’s favourite song, which was also played for her send-off tour. It was also Geoffrey’s favourite...amazing. “The other magical event was when I saw him, Geoffrey, at the hospital I sang a Haitian folk song, Feuilles-o, which he taught me when I was about seven, on one of his trips back home. “Geoffrey actually sang it with me with tubes in his mouth. My uncle Léo then joined in. It was one of my most intimate one-on-one celebrations with Geoffrey...my farewell to him. Geoffrey was one of the most amazing extraordinary persons, larger than life.” Holder is survived by his wife Carmen de Lavallade and their son, Léo.
Tributes
Yesterday masman Peter Minshall said: “Some of my most glorious memories of London were with Geoffrey Holder. He passed through like a comet, blazing, a trail of stars behind him as he was making his grand appearance in a Bond movie. “The man was just pure and simple, a joy to be with in terms of the arts and his views on the world. What a towering Caribbean man Geoffrey Holder was and I mean that literally.”
Carla Foderingham, CEO of the T&T Film Company, expressed sadness over Holder’s passing. She said: “His passing is a tremendous loss to the creative industries but more specifically the diaspora communities. He was so huge. “The documentary Carmen and Geoffrey bears evidence of the work he has done and the contribution he made. “This documentary spoke of his amazing start and won the Best Film Award in the 2009 T&T Film Festival. “It also gave the home audience a better understanding of the extensive body of work and contribution Geoffrey Holder made to dance and film. On behalf of the local movie fraternity I extend condolences to his family.”
Holder was an inspiration to many younger performers. One of those he inspired is London-based Trinidadian Nolan Frederick, an actor who has been in several West End productions including La Cage Aux Folles, Rent, Miss Saigon and Pajama Game. Frederick’s family and the Holders were neighbours in Belmont. “I’m devastated,” Frederick said on social networking site Facebook. “If it wasn’t for him talking my grandmother into letting me study dance and drama, I probably wouldn’t have the career I have today. “He was an inspiration always and always wanted to know how I was doing, every show I did he was so proud. A true trailblazer is gone but will never be forgotten,” he added.
Lisa Wickham, president/CEO of Imagine Media International Ltd, said: “I was really shocked when I got the news because Geoffrey Holder had such an eternal presence about him. “I didn’t realise that he was that ill. I have always announced outside of Trinidad that he was from Trinidad. He did a tremendous amount of work in the movie industry, breaking into Hollywood at such an early time when black faces were not present. “Along with Sir Trevor McDonald, he was one of our prominent international treasures in terms of establishing a T&T presence. “I remember his imposing voice as the crab in Little Mermaid, as well as his roles in Dr Doolittle and Annie and on Broadway. “I even heard his voice on an ad just this weekend on American TV. We are beholden to Geoffrey Holder, primarily because of the international presence he established and the level of excellence he maintained. I personally admired him.”
A life in the Arts
A son of Port-of-Spain, Geoffrey Holder attended Queen’s Royal College before migrating to the United States. He married dancer Carmen de Lavallade and they had one son, Leo. Holder turned US theatre on its head when he directed The Wiz, an all-black version of The Wizard of Oz, on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera. This production won him Tony Awards in 1975 for costume design and music direction. America got familiar with Holder’s impressive bass voice as he did a slew of television ads. Also an accomplished dancer, Holder was taught the art by his older brother, the artist, dancer and musician Boscoe.
He assumed the reins of his brother’s Holder’s Dancing Company, subsequently taking it to New York City in 1954, invited by the choreographer Agnes de Mille, who had seen the troupe perform two years before in St Thomas, in the Virgin Islands. Arriving in New York at a time when all-black Broadway productions were peaking in popularity, Holder taught classes at the Katherine Dunham School and was a principal dancer for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in 1955 and 1956. He continued to dance and direct the Holder dance company until 1960, when it disbanded. In the meantime, at a dance recital, he caught the attention of the producer Arnold Saint-Subber, who was putting together a show with a Caribbean theme.
Holder made his Broadway debut on December 30, 1954, as a featured dancer in the House of Flowers, a haunting, perfumed evocation of West Indian bordello life, with music by Harold Arlen and a book by Arlen and Truman Capote, based on his novella of the same name. Directed by Peter Brook at the Alvin Theatre, it starred Diahann Carroll and Pearl Bailey. The cinematic performance Caribbean people will best remember Holder by was his role as Baron Samedi, the top-hatted guardian of the cemetery and the spirit of death, sex and resurrection in Haitian Voodoo culture, in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die.
Holder’s voodoo villain in this movie seemed to typecast his sporadic film career. With his striking looks and West Indian-inflected voice, producers tended to cast him in roles deemed exotic. In Doctor Dolittle (1967), he was a giant native who ruled a floating island as William Shakespeare (the Tenth). In Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask (1972), he played a sorcerer. In Annie (1982), he was the Indian servant Punjab. An exception was the 1992 romantic comedy Boomerang, in which he played a randy director of commercials working for Eddie Murphy’s playboy advertising executive.
In 1957, Holder landed a notable acting role, playing the hapless servant Lucky in an all-black Broadway revival of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, directed by Herbert Berghof.
The show, just seven months after the play’s original Broadway production, closed after only six performances because of a union dispute but the role, with its rambling, signature 700-word monologue, lifted Holder’s acting career.