JUDY HOLLIDAY: "Lovers have a right to betray you...friends don't."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "Acting is a very limited form of expression and those who take it seriously are very limited people."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "I've always loved words. I ate up all the books I could get my hands on, and when I couldn't get books, I read candy wrappers and labels on cereal and toothpaste boxes."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "I guess I owe everything to "Billie" (her character in "Born Yesterday"). But, some mornings I wake up cursing her."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "I don't think the public would accept me (in a dramatic part). As soon as they see me, they start to laugh. They see me as a clown. I doubt they could accept me in a serious role."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "I love to cook and then I love to eat what I've cooked. But when I was doing Born for Columbia, I had to diet for months. And I had to show up at the studio every morning two hours before they started shooting. From 7 to 8 a.m. they worked on my hair. From 8 to 9 they worked on my face. And they bleached me every other day. If I went on television (a series) I'd have to be on a diet and beauty treatments all the time. You think I'm nuts? I like living too much for that!"



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "I like to eat. Out there (Hollywood) they don't let a girl eat."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "I am not a member of any organization listed by the Attorney General as subversive. In any instance where I lent my name in the past, it was certainly without knowledge that such an organization was subversive. I have always been essentially and foremost an American."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "I began my career as a song-n-dance girl at the age of four, when my mother dragged me to a ballet school and threw me in."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "It's trite to say, but it's absolutely true--that adversity strengthens. I could go into a tizzie much easier before (her bout with cancer) than now, though it's too bad you have to learn it the hard way. But then it wouldn't be adversity if you didn't have to learn it the hard way."



JUDY HOLLIDAY: "Advice is like kissing. It costs nothing and is a pleasent thing to do."



GEORGE CUKOR: "She was a strange, touching girl. Odd at times, but very open and flexible and blessed with a sweet charm and sensitivity, and above all, she had what only the best of human beings mysteriously possess...she had the grace of dignity."



KATHERINE HEPBURN: "She looked like a Renoir."



SHELLEY WINTERS: "If she had lived, Judy Holliday would have been a national treasure. She had sweetness together with a super intellect and cunning that allowed her to survive in one of the most difficult eras in the entertainment industry. (Judy was) one of our greatest American clowns and tragediennes."



CONSTANCE BENNETT: "Judy Holliday is the funniest comedic actress in pictures."



JACK LEMMON: "Working with Judy, you never, ever got the feeling she gave one goddam about how the lighting is on her face or where the camera is. It was into the eyeballs and you acted with the person and not at her."



GARSON KANIN: "She was an unlikely type for movie stardom but made it by dedicated use of extraordinary talent. Her death in 1965...deprived the screen of one of its most uniquely gifted artists."



HEDDA HOPPER: (circa 1950) "There's a new star in town...When the perfect gal meets the perfect part you can expect the best. In Born Yesterday you get it. Judy's great, and every time she speaks, you scream with laughter."



JOAN DAVIS: "She's one of the funniest, cutest, most talened comediennes I've ever seen."



EDWARD G. ROBINSON: "When I saw Born Yesterday on Broadway, I thought that nothing could be more hilarious than the play---but I was wrong. Because, the picture packs even a greater wallop. And Judy Holliday, for my money, is even more wonderful on the screen than she was on the footlights---and that's going some."



BROOKS ATKINSON: "Judy Holliday is even more talented than you may have suspected. She is a fantastic entertainer with a personality that is both amusing and endearing."



BETTY COMDEN: "A brilliant woman and a great actress. Very funny and very intuitive."



ADOLPH GREEN: "The dearest friend imaginable."



HAL LINDEN: "She was the most generous leading lady I have ever had in my entire life. She could afford to be generous, because she was supremely confident that she could continue to control the stage. She never said the focus had to be on her. She would turn her back to the audience to give the focus to another actor, who was supposed to be the center of the scene. Her back was twice as good as most people facing forward. My point is that she was aware of what a scene was about, and was ready to play it the way it should be played. She was a very bright lady."



JULE STYNE: "Judy was a musical person. She was a wonderful actress, a great star, (and she) had a Chaplinesque quality, one that could make you cry."



E.J. KAHN: "I don't think she cared about (image). She had a fundamental understanding that she was a person of quality and that whatever happend, she would be herself."



Home | Biographical Essay | Film Career | Images
Stage Career | Music Recordings | Biographies
FAQ | Chronology