Holland, Anthony

Anthony Holland (1928-1988) was an actor, playwright, artist, and art teacher. He was born James Gardiner Holland in Brooklyn, New York, on March 3, 1928. The family moved to Chicago, where Anthony Holland attended high school and the University of Chicago. He was an honors student in the humanities department, earned a Master's degree in art history, and taught art classes at the University of Chicago. While attending an art history convention in Philadelphia, Anthony Holland made up his mind to switch careers and become an actor.

Holland's early interest in art and movement informed his work as an actor. In an interview with the Los Angeles Herald Examiner (June 15, 1980), Holland described his technique as "more like dance," and "imagery acting-the use of the whole body." His upbringing in a diverse, multi-ethnic neighborhood infused his writings and performances with wordplay and vocal accents. His play, Shoe Palace Murray, co-written with William Hoffman in 1976, is a take-off on the life of his own father who was a shoe salesman to Broadway actors. The play was produced by the American Conservatory Theatre in 1978 and revived in an Off-Off Broadway production in 2005.

Holland changed his name from James Gardiner Holland to Anthony Holland when he joined Actor's Equity. He began his acting career at the University Theatre in Chicago, where he met kindred spirits, who pooled their artistic talents and meager financial resources to found the Playwrights Theatre Club. After two years, this theater was closed down by the fire department. Holland and the actors then organized The Compass Players, developing their signature style of comedy improvisation and social satire.

In the fall of 1959, Holland and other actors from the old Playwrights Theatre Club formed the Second City comedy troupe. They opened their own club, taking their name from A. J. Liebling's derisive profile of Chicago in the New Yorker magazine. Second City performances won national acclaim, eventually becoming an institution with a school and workshop to train improvisational comic actors.

Holland next moved to New York City to train with Lee Strasberg in his Actor's Studio. Anthony made his Broadway debut in 1963 in Lillian Hellman's comedy, My Mother, My Father and Me. He appeared in many Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, and national theater productions. He won a New York Critics Poll Award as well as an Obie Award in the 1969-1970 season for his distinguished performance in The White House Murder Case. Other stage performances include: Division Street, The Leaf People, Dreyfus in Rehearsal, We Bombed in New Haven, It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman, Nathan Weinstein, Mystic Connecticut, The Duchess of Malfi, and Measure for Measure. Holland's screen credits include Klute (1971), All That Jazz (1979), and The Tempest (1982). He appeared in numerous commercials and television series, such as M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cagney & Lacey, and Hill Street Blues.

Holland wrote theater scripts, screenplays, and concepts for screenplays. He collaborated with former colleagues from Second City, including Barbara Harris, who co-authored Be Kind To Your Servants. They are Your Closest Friends. He also co-wrote several plays and screenplays with William Hoffman, including Cornbury: The Queen's Governor, which was produced Off Broadway in 2009, and was included in the anthology Gay Plays: The First Collection, ed. William Hoffman (New York: Avon Books, 1979).

Holland was suffering with AIDS and committed suicide on July 9, 1988 in New York City.

From the guide to the Anthony Holland papers, 1956-1988, (The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.)

Epithet: Yeoman Pricker of the Buck-hounds

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000703.0x000101