Judy Holliday - Later Career

Later Career

In November 1956 she returned to Broadway starring in the musical Bells Are Ringing with book and lyrics by her Revuers friends, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and directed by Jerome Robbins, for which she won the 1957 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. In 1960 she starred in the film version of Bells Are Ringing. Of her performance in the stage musical, Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times: "Nothing has happened to the shrill little moll whom the town loved in Born Yesterday. The squeaky voice, the embarrassed giggle, the brassy naivete, the dimples, the teeter-totter walk fortunately remain unimpaired...Miss Holliday now adds a trunk-full of song-and-dance routines...Without losing any of that doll-like personality, she is now singing music by Jule Styne and dancing numbers composed by Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse. She has gusto enough to triumph in every kind of music hall antic." In 1956 she starred in the film The Solid Gold Cadillac.

In October 1960 she had started out-of-town tryouts on the play Laurette, based on the life of Laurette Taylor. The show was directed by José Quintero, with background music by Elmer Bernstein and produced by Alan Pakula. When Holliday became ill and had to leave the show, it closed in Philadelphia without opening on Broadway. She had throat surgery shortly after leaving the production, in October 1960.

Holliday's last role was in the stage musical Hot Spot, which closed after 43 performances on May 25, 1963.