Early Life
Born Judith Tuvim ("Tuvim" approximates the Yiddish word for "holidays") in New York City, she was the only child of Abe and Helen Tuvim, who were of Russian Jewish descent. She grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, New York and graduated from Julia Richman High School. Her first job was as an assistant switchboard operator at the Mercury Theatre run by Orson Welles and John Houseman.
As a child, Holliday exhibited a profoundly high intelligence, having a measured IQ score of 172, placing her above the 99.999th percentile.
Read more about this topic: Judy Holliday
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“That poor little thing was a good woman, Judge. But she just sort of let life get the upper hand. She was born here and she wanted to be buried here. I promised her on her deathbed she’d have a funeral in a church with flowers. And the sun streamin’ through a pretty window on her coffin. And a hearse with plumes and some hacks. And a preacher to read the Bible. And folks there in church to pray for her soul.”
—Laurence Stallings (1804–1968)