Geoffrey Holder

Geoffrey Lamont Holder was born on the first of August 1930 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the youngest of the five children of Arthur Holder and Louise de Frense, Barbadian immigrants who had made their home on the island. Into that household of music and paint came a boy who would refuse to choose a single art, and who instead mastered many.

He first stepped into performance at the age of seven, dancing in the company of his elder brother Boscoe, himself a celebrated dancer and painter. From Trinidad's stages Geoffrey carried his own troupe to New York, where his towering frame, resonant voice, and painter's eye set him apart. He danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, exhibited his canvases, and moved with equal ease from concert hall to film, memorably playing Baron Samedi in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die.

His crowning stage achievement came in 1975, when he directed and designed the costumes for The Wiz, the soaring all-Black retelling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. For that work he won two Tony Awards — Best Direction of a Musical and Best Costume Design — becoming the first Black man honored in those categories, a barrier broken in full public view.

A painter, choreographer, actor, and director who lived as a true Renaissance man, Geoffrey Holder died in New York City on the fifth of October 2014, at the age of eighty-four. May the many arts he gathered into one life be remembered, and his name be held in honor.