Today we celebrate the life and career of Tony Award-winning director, choreographer, actor and artist Geoffrey Holder in honor of his death this week at the age of 84.
He's The Wiz Exploring a dizzying and awe-inspiring array of artistic endeavors over the course of his 60-year career, Geoffrey Holder was a true original in the entertainment realm. As history would have it, in 1952, legendary choreographer Agnes De Mille witnessed Holder performing in his native country of Trinidad and brought him to the United States, where he began teaching at The Katherine Dunham School Of Dance, following in the footsteps of his Tony Award-winning brother, Boscoe, who was already established as a director in New York. Shortly thereafter, Holder joined the Metropolitan Opera Ballet as a featured dancer, which he soon followed up with his Broadway debut in the short-lived but glowingly remembered musical HOUSE OF FLOWERS, featuring music by Harold Arlen, with book and lyrics by Truman Capote. Then, Holder bookended his Broadway debut with an all-black production of Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT in 1957. While Holder would return to his first love of dance and the universe of live performance, the world at large was introduced to him byway of his countless onscreen appearances in the ensuing years, ranging from serious dramas to mainstream action films to crowd-pleasing comedies, children's films, memorable TV ads and far beyond.
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