Gloria Holden (5 September 1903 – 22 March 1991) was an american film actress, best known for her role as Dracula's Daughter.
Early life
Born in England, Gloria Holden went to America as a child. She attended school in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and later studied at theAmerican Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
Theatre
Holden's early stage work included small parts in plays such as The Royal Family, in which she spoke four lines playing a nurse. She was an understudy to Mary Ellis in Children of Darkness, and had a minor role in The Ferguson Family. She succeeded Lilly Cahill as the feminine lead in As Husbands Go at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway, in June 1931.
In August 1932, Holden was part of the cast of Manhattan Melody, at the Longacre Theatre. The Lawrence Hazard play, adapted by L. Lawrence Weber, also featured Helen Lowell, Minnie Dupree and William Corbett as players. She was the leading lady in Survivor(1933), written by D.L. James. Holden was among the cast members in Memory (1933), a Myron Fagan play.
The western drama, The Long Frontier (1935), was presented at the Westport Country Playhouse, Westport, Connecticut. Nance O'Neil headed a cast which included Holden, Alan Bunce and Claire Carleton.
Films
She may be best remembered for two roles in her long career, that of Mme. Zola in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), and her "exotic" depiction of the title role in Dracula's Daughter(1936). Her performance in the latter influenced the writings or horror novelist Anne Rice, and Dracula's Daughter is directly mentioned in Rice's novel The Queen of the Damned.
In July 1937, Holden was assigned to play the character of Marian Morgan in The Man Without a Country (1937). The Technicolor short co-starred John Litel and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Other films in which she acted include:
- Test Pilot (1938)
- Hawaii Calls (1938)
- Dodge City (1939)
- Miracles for Sale (1939)
- This Thing Called Love (1940)
- The Corsican Brothers (1941)
- Miss Annie Rooney (1942)
- A Gentleman After Dark (1942)
- Behind the Rising Sun (1943)
- Strange Holiday (1946)
- The Hucksters (1947)
- Killer McCoy (1947)
- Precious Waters (1948),
- A Kiss for Corliss (1949)
- The Eddy Duchin Story (1956)
- This Happy Feeling (1958)
- Auntie Mame (1958)
Radio
On radio, among several other roles, Gloria Holden played a non-singing Julie La Verne on Lux Radio Theatre's 1940 adaptation of Show Boat, based on the 1936 film version. [1]
Personal life
In 1937 she dated Rudy Sehr, a member of a Viennese banking family and a film cutter in Hollywood. In 1944, she married William Hoyt, her husband until her death. They had one son, Christopher Hoyt, who died in 1970. Gloria Holden was an enthusiastic cyclist.
She died in March 1991 in Redlands, California, from a heart attack, aged 87.
Source: Wikipedia