Celeste Holm Movies
American actress Celeste Holm made her first stage appearance in 1936 with a Pennsylvania stock company. Sophisticated and poised beyond her years, Holm was cast shortly afterward in a touring company of the ultra-chic Clare Boothe Luce comedy The Women, then played New York in such high-profile productions as The Time of Your Life. Rodgers and Hammerstein cast her as soubrette Ado Annie in Oklahoma! in 1943; both the production itself and Annie's show-stopping song "I Cain't Say No" affirmed Holm's future stardom. Following her film debut in Three Little Girls in Blue (1946), she was cast by her studio, 20th Century-Fox, in the role of the love-starved fashion editor in the prestige feature Gentlemen's Agreement (1947), for which she won an Academy Award. The important role of Bette Davis' understanding friend in another Oscar-winner, All About Eve (1950), has immortalized Holm amongst the film cultists. Stage, nightclub and television assignments followed (she starred in the short-lived 1950s sitcom Honestly, Celeste), and from the late 1950s onward, Holm was more at home on stage than in films. Her performance in the touring company of Mame won Holm the Sara Siddons Award -- coincidentally the same award presented to the title character at the beginning of All About Eve. Always choosy about her roles, Holm remained active in the 1980s and 1990s whenever a good part struck her fancy; one of her most frequently rebroadcast assignments was as a custody court judge in an early-1980s episode of Archie Bunker's Place. When giving on-camera interviews on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma, Holm appeared much too youthful to have participated in the landmark musical. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A struggling actress in search of companionship finds her heart torn between an expert in the art of seduction and a computer with the social skills of the most seasoned ladies' man in director Evan Oppenheimer's technologically flavored tale of love in the 21st Century. Professor Mal Downhey (Tam Cavanagh) has just made one of the most important technological breakthroughs in modern computing; he has created a computer named "Jerry" that can interact with people on an intellectual level even greater than that of some made from flesh and bone. When his unimpressed bosses give the flustered professor two weeks to publish his data or pack his bags, Mal convinces his good friend Jane to assist in proving his machine's worth by running a contest aimed at proving a woman can fall in love with a computer even faster than she would a real man. Now, as "Jerry" and Professor Troy Rollins - aka Dr. Love - compete for the love of a lonely actress named Samantha (Sara Chalke), the very man who masterminded the man-versus-machine scheme finds himself falling for the one woman who could make or break his entire future. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cavanagh, Sarah Chalke, (more)
Directed by Rick McKay, who traveled across five continents during the documentary's production, Broadway: The Golden Age is both a celebration of current Broadway stars and a tribute to Broadway legends past. Through a plethora of interviews and vast amounts of archival footage, McKay presents a variety of factoids, anecdotes, and memories from over 100 Broadway actors, writers, and directors. The careers of Laurette Taylor, Kim Hunter, Jessica Tandy, and Marlon Brando are all animatedly retold, as is some of the Broadway "lore of olde," such as Angela Lansbury's struggle to land a role in Mame and the shocked reaction to West Side Story on its opening night. In addition to footage and discussion regarding highly successful Broadway stars, a variety of actors recount their experiences and struggles in finding even a small amount of critical recognition. The cast includes Shirley MacLaine, Bea Arthur, Edie Adams, Alec Baldwin, and Kaye Ballard, and many others. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edie Adams, Bea Arthur, (more)
- 1998
This is the first episode of a two-part story, which originally concluded on the Touched by an Angel spinoff series Promised Land. Monica (Roma Downey) and her fellow angels once again pay a visit to the family of Russell Greene (Gerald McRaney), on the one-year anniversary of the traffic accident in which Russell's ne'er-do-well brother Joe (Richard Thomas) killed two people. Though Joe has ostensibly reformed, he is still not quite out of the woods: Sandra Mills (Karen Silas), whose husband and son were killed in the accident, has sworn to put Joe in his grave. In a curiously parallel development, Russell's wife Claire, who teaches reading to Death Row inmates, tries to help condemned prisoner Darlene (Tracy Gold) reconcile with her family. The episode ends in a cliffhanger, with two lives (and maybe more!) in the balance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1997
This romantic fantasy from writer, director, and producer James F. Robinson, stars Brendan Fraser as Fletcher McBracken, a starry-eyed San Antonio puppeteer who, like his father and grandfather before him, has a mystical vision of the woman he's fated to marry. Believing that she'll be found in "Formosa" (the one-time name of Taiwan), Fletcher books a flight. During a stopover in L.A., however, he learns of a trendy bar called Formosa and decides to check it out. Sure enough, Fletcher sees his dream girl, Rosalyn Willoughby (Joanna Going), a con artist on the lookout for a new mark, a millionaire from Texas. Assuming that Fletcher is the man she's supposed to bilk, Rosalyn accompanies him to San Antonio, where she meets his tuba-playing grandmother (Celeste Holm) and his eccentric friends, including the Tree Man (Lou Rawls). Charmed against her will by Fletcher, Rosalyn considers a real romance with the daffy artist, but each of them has some revelations to make before a real relationship can begin. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- 1997
This opening episode of Touched by an Angel's fourth season is actually the first half of a "crossover" story, with the conclusion appearing on the spinoff series Promised Land. Heavenly caseworkers Monica (Roma Downey) and Tess (Della Reese) are dispatched to the town of Chicory Creek, home of their friend Russell Greene (Gerald McRaney) and his family. At the same time, Russell's no-good brother Joe (Richard Thomas) is involved in a reckless-driving accident in which two people are killed. True to form, Joe runs away to avoid prosecution--but not before posing as the "good samaritan" who has rescued the only other survivor of the crash! Joe then makes a beeline to Russell's house, where despite a far-from-warm welcome he insists upon a reunion with Nathaniel (Eddie Karr), the son he deserted years earlier. Throughout the rest of the episode, Joe demonstrates repeatedly that he may well beyond redemption--meaning that Monica and Tess REALLY have their work cut out for them this time! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
Originally telecast September 15, 1996, the third-season opener of Touched by an Angel is actually the pilot episode for the spinoff series Promised Land, which debuted two days later on September 17. Down in the dumps because she has failed her most recent assignment, Heavenly caseworker Monica (Roma Downey) is referred to the even more desperate plight of laid-off factory worker Russell Greene (Gerald McRaney). Suffering one setback after another, Russell thinks he has hit rock bottom when a promised job in his home town of Chicory Creek fails to materialize. But with the help of Monica and her angelic supervisor Tess, Russell and his family find a new purpose in life when they begin travelling throughout the country bringing help and hope to those less fortunate than themselves. In addition to Gerald McRaney, this episode serves to introduce the entire cast of Promised Land, including Wendy Phillips as Russell's wife Claire, Celeste Holm as his grandmother Hattie, Austin O'Brien and Sarah Schaub as his children Joshua and Dinah, Eddie Karr as his nephew Nathaniel, and Ossie Davis as philosophical family friend Erasmus Jones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
Filmed for television, Once You Meet a Stranger is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, using the same Patricia Highsmith novel as its source but transforming the protagonists into females. A chance meeting brings together former child star Sheila Gaines (Jacqueline Bisset) and the deceptively charming social butterfly Margo Anthony (Theresa Russell). As the ladies converse, two major facts come to light: Sheila is saddled with an ex-husband who refuses to give him a divorce, while Margo despises her wealthy mother and wishes her dead. In what seems to be a playful hypothesis, Margo suggests that she and Sheila "trade murders"; she will kill Sheila's former husband, Sheila will do in Margo's mom, and the authorities won't be any the wiser. Figuring that Margo is a harmless eccentric at best and a nutcase at worse, Sheila laughs off the notion of such an "arrangement"--but she isn't laughing when her troublesome ex-hubby turns up dead! If you've seen Strangers on a Train, you know how this one turns out, so best to find another way to spend 95 minutes. Once You Meet a Stranger originally aired September 25, 1996 on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1992
Anxious to afford an engagement ring for Kelly (Jackie Swanson), Woody (Woody Harrelson) takes a part-time job as a gravedigger. Unfortunately, the extra work load -- combined with the spookiness of his new surroundings -- causes him to begin hallucinating, not a pretty sight to behold for Kelly's hypersensitive grandmother (Celeste Holm). Elsewhere at Cheers, it is Rebecca's (Kirstie Alley) turn to take a fantastic voyage into the furnace duct. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1990
This video is a close-up of Marilyn Monroe as seen by some of those who knew her best. The award-winning program is filled with memories as told by her friends and fellow actors, including Celeste Holm, Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Susan Strasberg, and Josh Logan. Clips from her best moments in movies are shown, along with seldom-seen home movies and rare footage of the famous, but lonely actress. Richard Widmark provides narration. ~ Alice Day, All Movie Guide
- 1990
In this episode of the series, Cromwell proves that the owner of a California winery did not murder his brother who also owned the company and with whom he was always feuding. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1990
In this episode of the series, defense attorney Cromwell thinks that the bizarrely murdered members of an investment club were killed for money. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1989
In this drama, legal eagle Cromwell must protect her client who has been wrongly accused of killing a grifter. She is up against a crafty, and earnest police officer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1989
In this episode, defense attorney Cromwell investigates the case of a woman accused of killing her rich husband. She discovers an underlayer of greed and adultery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1989
There were those in 1989 who bellyached that Disney Television's Polly was a far from faithful adaptation of Eleanor Porter's classic novel Pollyanna. What they meant was that Polly did not resemble the 1960 Hayley Mills movie version of Pollyanna, which itself played fast and loose with the source material. In Polly, The Cosby Show's Keshia Knight Pulliam portrays the "Glad Girl" who brings along a satchelful of happiness and optimism when she visits her wealthy aunt one summer. Tranposing Porter's all-white story to a middle-class black community in the Alabama of the 1950s (Celeste Holm is the only white costar) isn't nearly as self-conscious or gimmicky as it seems on paper. Nor is any damage done to the original by adding musical numbers, especially when taking into consideration that the film was directed by renowned choreographer Debbie Allen (the sister of Phylicia Rashad, who plays Polly's aunt--and who in 1989 was costarring with Keshia Knight Pulliam on a weekly basis on The Cosby Show). Polly scored a boffo ratings hit, prompting Disney TV to assemble a 1990 sequel, Polly: Comin' Home! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1987
Robert Hays stars in Murder by the Book in the dual role of mild-mannered mystery writer D. H. Mercer and his creation, hard-boiled private eye Biff Deegan. While writing his latest book, Mercer becomes so immersed in his material that he inadvertently causes Biff to come to life. Mercer teams up with his Chandleresque doppelganger to solve a genuine mystery involving art fraud, murder, and a beautiful lady in peril (Catherine Mary Stewart). Made for television, Murder By the Book was based on a novel by Mel Arrighi, titled (what else?) Alter Ego. It was filmed late in 1985 and first telecast on March 17, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Three Men and a Baby is an Americanized remake of the 1985 French comedy hit Three Men and a Cradle. Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg play three upwardly mobile New York bachelors who share an apartment. Their even-keel lifestyle is thrown out of whack when a young woman leaves a baby on their doorstep, suspecting that film director Danson is the father. The balance of the film is devoted to milking as much humor as possible out of the situation of three urbane young men trying to play nursemaid with nary a clue of what they're doing (at one point, a desperate Selleck offers Guttenberg a thousand dollars if Guttenberg will change a diaper). A subplot involving drug dealers is thrown in to sustain audience interest after our trio of heroes become accustomed to a baby around the apartment. "Urban legend" aficionados please note: That cardboard cutout of Ted Danson briefly glimpsed in one scene of Three Men and a Baby is not the ghost of a little boy who died in the bachelors' apartment before filming started. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, (more)
- 1987
While assisting Deputy DA Carol Baldwin (Kathleen Lloyd) with her prosecution of a very wealthy and powerful man, Magnum is hired by an elderly woman (Celeste Holm) to locate the birth certificate for the child she'd given up for adoption nearly three decades earlier. What Magnum finds is evidence that Carol Baldwin herself is that child--and that there is a terrible secret regarding her birth parents. Is this devastating revelation somehow tied in with Carol's current court case. . .and what will be the ramifications? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
This documentary of Marilyn Monroe takes a novel approach in not dwelling on her love affairs and concentrating on her film career. Film clips and press conferences accompany interviews of Marilyn's friends and co-stars such as Shelly Winters, Robert Mitchum, Susan Strasberg, and Joshua Logan. Even decades after her death, all are left with a lasting impression of Monroe as an actress of considerable talent but one who struggled with demons that plagued her personal life. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, (more)
- 1983
In this detective drama set in Hollywood, a private investigator uses logic to solve the murder of a famous mystery writer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1981
Like the 1960 theatrical feature of the same name, the made-for-TV Midnight Lace was inspired by Matilda Shouted Fire, a novel by Janet Green. Mary Crosby stars as Cathy Preston, the role originally essayed by Doris Day in the 1960 film, while Gary Frank steps into the old Rex Harrison role as Cathy's husband Brian, a recording executive. Though convinced that someone is trying to murder her, Cathy is unable to persuade anyone else of the danger she is in; even her beloved Brian insists that his wife is merely hallucinating. By the time it becomes obvious that Cathy has indeed been targeted for death, it is nearly too late, thanks to the clever machinations of the heretofore well-hidden instigator of the plot. Also in the cast is Celeste Holm as Cathy's wealthy aunt Sylvia, a part played by Myrna Loy in the earlier version. The TV adaptation of Midnight Lace debuted February 9, 1981, on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on the best-selling memoirs of Lillian Rogers Parks, the NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House traces over five decades of American political history as witnessed from the vantage point of the servants' quarters. Played by Tania Johnson as a teenager and by Leslie Uggams as an adult, Lillian Rogers Parks served for 52 years as a maidservant at the White House. Though crippled early on with polio, Lillian diligently and loyally stuck to her duties -- and her own rock-solid set of principles and ideals -- through eight highly different Presidential administrations, often (and occasionally reluctantly) acting as friend and confidante to the First Lady of the moment. The large and stellar cast included a number of top-rank film and TV actors, obviously having the time of their lives impersonating such presidents as William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and their respective wives. Also in the cast were several African-American veterans from the landmark TV miniseries Roots. Earning 11 Emmy Award nominations, the nine-hour Backstairs at the White House was seen in five installments from January 29 to February 19, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Uggams, Olivia Cole, (more)
- 1977
- PG
Larry Cohen's pseudo-biography of J. Edgar Hoover (Broderick Crawford) was virtually howled off the screens upon its release in 1977. Today, with the cross-dressing Hoover so much a matter of historical record that even Oliver Stone didn't bother to make too much of a point of it in Nixon, the Cohen film plays more like a dramatic re-enactment rather than the puerile paranoid fantasy it appeared to be at the time. Unfortunately, Cohen's method is part exploitation and part historical tableau. On the one hand, Cohen dramatizes historical moments in Hoover's momentous life story -- the shooting of John Dillinger in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater, his first arrest -- with a deadening solemnity (even abandoning the backlot facsimiles to shoot on the actual historical locations). On the other hand, Cohen relishes his scenes of Hoover's homosexuality and his propensity for sitting in the dark with a bottle of whiskey, replaying tapes of the amorous liaisons of high government officials -- the decadently homosexual Hoover built his political power base by getting all the dirt he could on the government's movers and shakers -- particularly their sexual liaisons -- and blackmailing them for their support when he could not get it in any other way. A true schizophrenic masterwork in its time, the film is now muted by a reality more incredible than Cohen ever imagined in his wildest dreams. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Broderick Crawford, José Ferrer, (more)
- 1977
This second of two pilot films for the Love Boat TV series was originally telecast on January 21, 1977. After the shakedown cruise, several of the actors playing the crew of the Pacific Princess were replaced. In Love Boat 2, Ted Lange, Bernie Kopell and Fred Grandy portray the roles they would be playing for several seasons thereafter, namely Isaac, Doc and Gopher, respectively. But instead of Gavin McLeod as the Captain and Lauren Tewes as the cruise director, Love Boat II offers us Quinn Redecker in the former part, and Diane Stilwell in the latter. {As with the first Love Boat, this second pilot fills its time with four separate sets of passengers, each in their own self-contained plotline. Hope Lange plays a wife who, fed up with philandering husband Robert Reed, takes up with tennis pro Lyle Waggoner. Divorcee Celeste Holm is reunited with old flame Craig Stevens. CPA Bert Convy (practically a "regular" of the subsequent series) pursues cruise director Diane Stillwell. And last but not least, shy psychiatrist Ken Berry falls for brash cruise entertainer Candice Azzara. The Love Boat series proper would commence in September of 1977, and sail on until late 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Quinn K. Redeker
- 1976
One of four dramatic miniseries carried by NBC under the blanket title Best Sellers, Captains and the Kings was adapted from a novel by Taylor Caldwell. Covering a time span from 1857 to 1912, this was the saga of the Irish-immigrant Armagh clan, with emphasis on the rags-to-riches career of Joseph Armagh (Richard Jordan). Achieving fame and prominence (if not full-fledged social acceptance) through a Byzantine series of investments in the oil industry, the elder Armagh was obsessed with the notion of having one of his sons become the first Irish-Catholic President of the United States (does this story sound vaguely familiar?). Along the way, Joseph and his offspring indulged in innumerable romantic liaisons, extramarital and otherwise. Featured in the all-star cast is Patty Duke Astin, who won an Emmy award for her portrayal of Bernadette Hennessey Armagh. Captains and the Kings was broadcast from September 30 to November 18, 1976 in seven installments, two of which ran 120 minutes, and the other six lasting 60 minutes -- a total of nine hours' air time in all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
