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Son of Director & Costume Designer Geoffrey Holder Writes About His Father's Final Days
By: Nicole Rosky Oct. 07, 2014
As BroadwayWorld reported yesterday, Tony Award-winning stage director and costume designer Geoffrey Holder passed away on Sunday, October 5th in Manhattan. According to family spokesman Charles M. Mirotznik, the cause of death was complications from pneumonia. Holder was 84 years old.
Born in Trinidad, the actor was well known for his grand stature, "hearty laugh" and heavily accented bass voice. In 1952, the choreographer Agnes de Mille saw Holder dance on Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She invited him to New York where he would eventually teach at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance for two years. He was a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York from 1955 to 1956.
His son, Leo Holder, just released a statement on his father's death and final days on Facebook:A little more than a week after developing pneumonia, Geoffrey Holder made a decision. He was calling the shots as always. He was done. 2 attempts at removing the breathing tube didn't show promising results. In his truest moment of clarity since being rolled into I.C.U. he said he was good. Mouthing the words "No, I am not afraid" without a trace of negativity, sadness or bitterness, he sincerely was good with it. He had lived the fullest life he could possibly live, a 70 + year career in multiple art forms, and was still creating. Still painting, a bag of gold (of course) fabric and embellishments in his room for a new dress for my mother, sculptures made out of rope, baseball caps and wire hangers. New ideas every second, always restlessly chasing his too fertile mind. A week of breathing tubes and restrained hands had forced him to communicate with only cryptic clues which I was fortunate enough to be able to decipher at best 40% of the time.The fact that we all struggled to understand him enraged him to the point that he could sometimes pull tantrums taking up to 4 people to restrain him from pulling out the wires. He was head strong (understatement), but he was also physically strong. Iron hand grip that no illness could weaken. 9 days of mouthing words that, because of the tubes, produced no sound forcing him to use his eyes to try to accentuate the point he was trying to make. But this didn't mean he wasn't still Geoffrey Holder. This didn't mean an end to taking over. Holding court as he always did.
Directing and ordering people around. Choreographing. Getting his way. We still understood that part, and the sight of his closest friends and extended family brought out the best in him. Broad smiles in spite of the tubes, nodding approval of anything that met his standard (which was very high), and exuding pride and joy in all those in whom he saw a spark of magic and encouraged to blossom. The week saw a parade of friends from all over the world checking in to see him, hold is hand, rub his head, and give him the latest gossip. But he was still trying to tell me something, and although I was still the best at deciphering what he was saying, I still wasn't getting it.
They remove the tube that has imprisoned him for the past 9 days and robbed this great communicator of the ability to speak. I remove the mittens that prevent his hands from moving freely. I start the music, take his hands and start leading him, swaying them back and forth. And he lets go of me. He's gonna wing it as he was prone to do when he was younger. Breathing on his own for the last time, Geoffrey Holder, eyes closed, performs his last solo to Bill Evans playing Faure's Pavane. From his deathbed. The arms take flight, his beautiful hands articulate through the air, with grace. I whisper "shoulders" and they go into an undulating shimmy, rolling like waves. His Geoffrey Holder head gently rocks back and forth as he stretches out his right arm to deliver his trademark finger gesture, which once meant "you can't afford this" and now is a subtle manifestation of pure human spirit and infinite wisdom. His musical timing still impeccable, bouncing off the notes, as if playing his own duet with Evan's piano. Come the finale, he doesn't lift himself of the bed as he planned; instead, one last gentle rock of the torso, crosses his arms and turns his head to the side in a pose worthy of Pavlova. All with a faint, gentile smile. The orchestra finishes when he does. I loose it. They administer the morphine drip and put an Oxygen mask over his face and I watch him begin taking his last breaths. I put on some different music. I sit and watch him sleep, and breathe... 20 minutes later, he's still breathing albeit with this gurgling sound you can hear though the mask. Another several minutes go by, he's still breathing. Weakly, but still breathing... then his right hand starts to move. It looks like he's using my mother's note like a pencil, scratching the surface of the bed as if he's drawing. This stops a few minutes later, then the left hand begins tapping. Through the Oxygen mask the gurgling starts creating it's own rhythm. Not sure of what I'm hearing, I look up to see his mouth moving. I get closer to listen: "2, 3, 4....2, 3, 4... He's counting! It gets stronger, and at it's loudest sounds like the deep purr of a lion, then he says "Arms, 2, 3, 4, Turn, 2, 3, 4, Swing, 2, 3, 4, Down, 2, 3, 4...." I called my mother at home, where she was having a reception in his honor. She picks up. There are friends and family telling Geoffrey stories simultaneously laughing and crying in the background. "Hi, honey, Are you alright?" "Yes actually... he hasn't stopped breathing yet." I tell her about his solo, which brings her to a smile and a lightening of mood. I continue: "Can I ask you a question?" "Sure Honey. What? "Who the hell did you marry?" "What do you mean?" "You're not gonna believe this. He's got a morphine drip, going on over half an hour, an Oxygen mask on, his eyes closed, AND HE'S CHOREOGRAPHING!" This brings her to her first laugh of the day. She now knows we will be alright. He continues on like this for quite a while, and a doctor comes in to take some meter readings of the machines. I ask the doctor if this is normal. As she begins to explain to me about the process, his closed eyes burst open focused straight on us like lasers and he roars with all his might: "SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!! YOU'RE BREAKING MY CONCENTRATION!!!!!!!" We freeze with our mouths open. He stares us down. long and hard. Then he closes his eyes again, "Arms, 2, 3, 4, Turn, 2, 3, 4, Swing, 2, 3, 4, Down, 2, 3, 4..." He continued counting 'til it faded out, leaving only the sound of faint breathing, slowing down to his very last breath at 9:25 pm. Still Geoffrey Holder.
The most incredible night of my life.
Thank you for indulging me. Love & best,
L
Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos
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