Gloria Holden

Gloria Holden

Holden in Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Born Gloria Anna Holden
5 September 1903
London, England, UK
Died 22 March 1991 (aged 87)
Redlands, California, U.S.
Occupation Actress
Years active 1931–1958
Spouse(s) Harry Dawson Reynolds (1921-19??)
William Hoyt (1944–1991; her death); 1 son (Christopher Hoyt (born 1944 – died 1970)

Gloria Anna Holden (September 5, 1903 – March 22, 1991) was an American film actress, best known for her role as Dracula's Daughter.

Early life

Born in England, Gloria Holden emigrated to the U.S. as a child. Her mother Eska (née Bergmann) was German.[1] She attended school in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and later studied at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

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 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.

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 appeared include:

Radio

Holden played a non-singing Julie La Verne on the 1940 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Show Boat, based on the 1936 film version.[2]

Personal life

She married Harry D. Reynolds in 1921. She married Harold A. Winston on December 17, 1932. They were divorced December 2, 1937. In 1944, she married her third husband, William Hoyt, to whom she remained married until her death. They had one son, Christopher Hoyt (born 1944 – died in an automobile accident 1970).

She died in March 1991 in Redlands, California from a heart attack, aged 87, and is buried in the city's Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Genealogy". Retrieved December 28, 2014.
  2. ↑ Profile at otr.net
  3. ↑ Gloria Holden at Find a Grave

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gloria Holden.

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