World-ac­claimed dancer, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, ac­tor, de­sign­er and painter Ge­of­frey La­m­ont Hold­er, 84, died on Sun­day in Man­hat­tan, USA.Hold­er's fi­nal re­quest was for his life sup­port to be dis­con­nect­ed at 4 pm on Sun­day, a re­quest that was ho­n­oured.In a lengthy trib­ute in the New York Times yes­ter­day, Charles M Mirotznik, a spokesman for the fam­i­ly, said Hold­er died of com­pli­ca­tions of pneu­mo­nia.His death is be­ing wide­ly re­port­ed in the in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia.

Stand­ing a stat­uesque six foot, six inch­es, Hold­er rose to fame via his amaz­ing danc­ing and act­ing abil­i­ties, his full-bod­ied laugh and his sig­na­ture deep voice. Though Trinida­di­an, he was re­gard­ed as Hol­ly­wood and Broad­way's ul­ti­mate Caribbean man.In New York at the time of Hold­er's death, his nephew David Booth­man said: "I trav­elled to New York on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 4, the an­niver­sary of my mom's pass­ing."Booth­man's moth­er was Ge­of­frey Hold­er's sis­ter Mar­jorie. He said: "She was cre­mat­ed the day of her birth­day. My grand­fa­ther's birth­day was Oc­to­ber 3, the date Ge­of­frey had de­cid­ed and was ready to go."He was con­vinced by my un­cle L�o (in fact David's cousin) to hold on till Sun­day be­cause my sis­ter Lisa and my daugh­ter Lani, my grand­daugh­ter Olivia Mar­jorie and I (the Trinidad fam­i­ly) were fly­ing in.

"On their way to the par­ty, with Lisa and Lani, Be­same Mu­cho was play­ing on the train. That was our moth­er's favourite song, which was al­so played for her send-off tour. It was al­so Ge­of­frey's favourite...amaz­ing."The oth­er mag­i­cal event was when I saw him, Ge­of­frey, at the hos­pi­tal I sang a Hait­ian folk song, Feuilles-o, which he taught me when I was about sev­en, on one of his trips back home."Ge­of­frey ac­tu­al­ly sang it with me with tubes in his mouth. My un­cle L�o then joined in. It was one of my most in­ti­mate one-on-one cel­e­bra­tions with Ge­of­frey...my farewell to him. Ge­of­frey was one of the most amaz­ing ex­tra­or­di­nary per­sons, larg­er than life."Hold­er is sur­vived by his wife Car­men de Laval­lade and their son, L�o.

Trib­utes

Yes­ter­day mas­man Pe­ter Min­shall said: "Some of my most glo­ri­ous mem­o­ries of Lon­don were with Ge­of­frey Hold­er. He passed through like a comet, blaz­ing, a trail of stars be­hind him as he was mak­ing his grand ap­pear­ance in a Bond movie."The man was just pure and sim­ple, a joy to be with in terms of the arts and his views on the world. What a tow­er­ing Caribbean man Ge­of­frey Hold­er was and I mean that lit­er­al­ly."

Car­la Foder­ing­ham, CEO of the T&T Film Com­pa­ny, ex­pressed sad­ness over Hold­er's pass­ing. She said: "His pass­ing is a tremen­dous loss to the cre­ative in­dus­tries but more specif­i­cal­ly the di­as­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties. He was so huge. "The doc­u­men­tary Car­men and Ge­of­frey bears ev­i­dence of the work he has done and the con­tri­bu­tion he made."This doc­u­men­tary spoke of his amaz­ing start and won the Best Film Award in the 2009 T&T Film Fes­ti­val. "It al­so gave the home au­di­ence a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the ex­ten­sive body of work and con­tri­bu­tion Ge­of­frey Hold­er made to dance and film. On be­half of the lo­cal movie fra­ter­ni­ty I ex­tend con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly."

Hold­er was an in­spi­ra­tion to many younger per­form­ers. One of those he in­spired is Lon­don-based Trinida­di­an Nolan Fred­er­ick, an ac­tor who has been in sev­er­al West End pro­duc­tions in­clud­ing La Cage Aux Folles, Rent, Miss Saigon and Pa­ja­ma Game.Fred­er­ick's fam­i­ly and the Hold­ers were neigh­bours in Bel­mont. "I'm dev­as­tat­ed," Fred­er­ick said on so­cial net­work­ing site Face­book."If it wasn't for him talk­ing my grand­moth­er in­to let­ting me study dance and dra­ma, I prob­a­bly wouldn't have the ca­reer I have to­day."He was an in­spi­ra­tion al­ways and al­ways want­ed to know how I was do­ing, every show I did he was so proud. A true trail­blaz­er is gone but will nev­er be for­got­ten," he added.

Lisa Wick­ham, pres­i­dent/CEO of Imag­ine Me­dia In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd, said: "I was re­al­ly shocked when I got the news be­cause Ge­of­frey Hold­er had such an eter­nal pres­ence about him."I didn't re­alise that he was that ill. I have al­ways an­nounced out­side of Trinidad that he was from Trinidad. He did a tremen­dous amount of work in the movie in­dus­try, break­ing in­to Hol­ly­wood at such an ear­ly time when black faces were not present."Along with Sir Trevor Mc­Don­ald, he was one of our promi­nent in­ter­na­tion­al trea­sures in terms of es­tab­lish­ing a T&T pres­ence."I re­mem­ber his im­pos­ing voice as the crab in Lit­tle Mer­maid, as well as his roles in Dr Doolit­tle and An­nie and on Broad­way."I even heard his voice on an ad just this week­end on Amer­i­can TV. We are be­hold­en to Ge­of­frey Hold­er, pri­mar­i­ly be­cause of the in­ter­na­tion­al pres­ence he es­tab­lished and the lev­el of ex­cel­lence he main­tained. I per­son­al­ly ad­mired him."

A life in the Arts

A son of Port-of-Spain, Ge­of­frey Hold­er at­tend­ed Queen's Roy­al Col­lege be­fore mi­grat­ing to the Unit­ed States. He mar­ried dancer Car­men de Laval­lade and they had one son, Leo.Hold­er turned US the­atre on its head when he di­rect­ed The Wiz, an all-black ver­sion of The Wiz­ard of Oz, on Broad­way and at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera. This pro­duc­tion won him Tony Awards in 1975 for cos­tume de­sign and mu­sic di­rec­tion.Amer­i­ca got fa­mil­iar with Hold­er's im­pres­sive bass voice as he did a slew of tele­vi­sion ads.Al­so an ac­com­plished dancer, Hold­er was taught the art by his old­er broth­er, the artist, dancer and mu­si­cian Boscoe.

He as­sumed the reins of his broth­er's Hold­er's Danc­ing Com­pa­ny, sub­se­quent­ly tak­ing it to New York City in 1954, in­vit­ed by the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Agnes de Mille, who had seen the troupe per­form two years be­fore in St Thomas, in the Vir­gin Is­lands. Ar­riv­ing in New York at a time when all-black Broad­way pro­duc­tions were peak­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty, Hold­er taught class­es at the Kather­ine Dun­ham School and was a prin­ci­pal dancer for the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera Bal­let in 1955 and 1956.He con­tin­ued to dance and di­rect the Hold­er dance com­pa­ny un­til 1960, when it dis­band­ed. In the mean­time, at a dance recital, he caught the at­ten­tion of the pro­duc­er Arnold Saint-Sub­ber, who was putting to­geth­er a show with a Caribbean theme.

Hold­er made his Broad­way de­but on De­cem­ber 30, 1954, as a fea­tured dancer in the House of Flow­ers, a haunt­ing, per­fumed evo­ca­tion of West In­di­an bor­del­lo life, with mu­sic by Harold Arlen and a book by Arlen and Tru­man Capote, based on his novel­la of the same name.Di­rect­ed by Pe­ter Brook at the Alvin The­atre, it starred Di­a­hann Car­roll and Pearl Bai­ley.The cin­e­mat­ic per­for­mance Caribbean peo­ple will best re­mem­ber Hold­er by was his role as Baron Same­di, the top-hat­ted guardian of the ceme­tery and the spir­it of death, sex and res­ur­rec­tion in Hait­ian Voodoo cul­ture, in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die.

Hold­er's voodoo vil­lain in this movie seemed to type­cast his spo­radic film ca­reer. With his strik­ing looks and West In­di­an-in­flect­ed voice, pro­duc­ers tend­ed to cast him in roles deemed ex­ot­ic. In Doc­tor Dolit­tle (1967), he was a gi­ant na­tive who ruled a float­ing is­land as William Shake­speare (the Tenth).In Woody Allen's Every­thing You Al­ways Want­ed to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask (1972), he played a sor­cer­er.In An­nie (1982), he was the In­di­an ser­vant Pun­jab. An ex­cep­tion was the 1992 ro­man­tic com­e­dy Boomerang, in which he played a randy di­rec­tor of com­mer­cials work­ing for Ed­die Mur­phy's play­boy ad­ver­tis­ing ex­ec­u­tive.

In 1957, Hold­er land­ed a no­table act­ing role, play­ing the hap­less ser­vant Lucky in an all-black Broad­way re­vival of Samuel Beck­ett's Wait­ing for Godot, di­rect­ed by Her­bert Berghof.

The show, just sev­en months af­ter the play's orig­i­nal Broad­way pro­duc­tion, closed af­ter on­ly six per­for­mances be­cause of a union dis­pute but the role, with its ram­bling, sig­na­ture 700-word mono­logue, lift­ed Hold­er's act­ing ca­reer.