1942 New York City New York

Edith Renaud Holman

Born 1938

New York City

Interviewed on February 7, 2025

By Eason Rytter

What is the first movie you remember seeing?

Well, it’s very difficult for me to remember that far. I mean, we’re going back over 80 years and there’s a little bit of confusion in my mind, but to the best of my knowledge probably the first movie I ever saw was Bambi.

I believe I was about four years old, so it was around 1942, and I went with my cousin June, who is two years older, and my Aunt Daisy. We went to see two movies a year, every Christmas and Easter, at Radio City Music Hall, and I think it was usually Disney, though once we saw The Yearling. But I believe the first one I saw was Bambi and I was just delighted with the beautiful big screen and bright colors. I loved the animated figures and I just fell in love with Bambi and his mother and little Thumper and the skunk whose name was Flower.

Radio City Music Hall was a beautiful palace of a place with plush seats.

There were high ceilings, crystal chandeliers, sweeping staircases, lavish curtains on the stage, and a large organ raised in an alcove on the side wall and all lit up. It just looked like something out of a dream, and I fell in love with all those wonderful little animated animals. I was entranced, they were so charming. But then the fire came in the film and I was terrified! I couldn’t believe that this horrible thing was happening to my lovely friendly animals in the forest and I just thought I would die if they were hurt. I started crying, and my cousin was crying, and we both were carrying on but we finally, finally managed to calm down and sit through the movie while my aunt consoled us.

After the film was over, the Rockettes would come out and they’d do a couple of numbers. They’d do a tap number with their famous kick line, and then they’d usually have some sort of ballet number too. I pestered my parents for ballet lessons after that and I started about age seven. And then I went on to train with Balanchine by the time I was 17 and work professionally as a ballerina, so I guess I have the movies to thank and blame for that! 

After the show, we would go to a Chinese restaurant in the city that we could walk to, about a block away, up a long flight of stairs. It had little booths. We would get the Chicken Chow Mein. This was something that we did twice a year, every year, for about five years as far as I can remember  — we would go every Christmas season and every Easter-time. It was Aunt Daisy’s gift to us. 

It was a long trip to get to the theater from where we lived. We were on Staten Island which, for anyone that doesn’t know New York City, is an island borough which takes about a half an hour by ferry about to get to the City from, so we would take a bus to the ferry, and then the ferry boat to Manhattan, and then a subway all the way up to Radio City Music Hall. The whole trip would take about an hour and a half, which is a pretty long trip for a four year old. We finally stopped doing that because my cousin and I both got really too old to enjoy animated movies and take that long trip to the City for it. We came to find it more convenient to go see films right near home on Staten Island, so when I was about seven I started going on Saturdays with my friends from school to see Roy Rogers and Dale Evans movies at the St. George Theater on Staten Island.

It was not at all like Radio City. It was a large theater but not nearly as large as that, and it was simpler…the seats were not velvet, they were just faux leather. But lots of children would be there and we would have a good time. No assigned seats, no ushers, so we’d just run in when the doors opened and get the best seats we could. There was a concession stand, and we would get popcorn, and watch Roy Rogers and Dale Evans movies. I remember Don’t Fence Me [In], Bells of Coronado — but I don’t think we paid much attention to the names!

We had to wait for a few minutes and watch the news before the movie would come on. But we would sit there and it would be very interesting – it’s probably the only way we would really learn what was going on in the world! I was madly in love with Roy Rogers. I thought he was the most handsome man I had ever seen, and I was really quite jealous of Dale Evans. But I liked to imagine that I was her, and that I had Roy Rogers as a boyfriend. I loved the horses, I loved the excitement, I loved seeing what it looked like in the West, because we didn’t get a chance to do much traveling at that time. No one seemed to have any money to go traveling or do anything right after the war, so it was nice to be able to see what it was like in other places of the country. I just so much wanted to ride horses with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. 

Were there differences between seeing the film at Radio City Music Hall and your local theater on Staten Island? 

There were ushers at Radio City and we all had seats with numbers on them, assigned, just as you were in the regular theater. In the theater on Staten Island, it was just run in and grab the best seats. It was just a totally different experience – we went from an elegant experience to a very un-elegant experience. But actually, un-elegant was more fun!

In those days, they played the organ in most theaters – as a matter fact, they played the organ in both places. In Radio City, of course, the organ was on a special pedestal and it was lit up. They played mostly classical music while we were being seated. In the St. George theater, it was very different. They had an organ there, but it was just a little old man sitting there playing whatever he knew, and whatever he wanted to play, and that was fine with us. We would listen to that until they showed us the news reel.

Did you dress up for going to the movies? 

When we went to Radio City, we were dressed in our Sunday best. I wore little pumps and a pretty frilly dress and my best coat, and we would act like little ladies. Now, it was quite different when we went to the one on Staten Island. There, we would generally wear our slacks and a blouse — something very casual, play clothes that we could enjoy the movie in and wouldn’t get messed up if we dropped popcorn on it.

You went on to become a stage and screen actress when you grew up. Was the movie industry different than you imagined as a kid?

Yes, the movie business was very different than I imagined! I thought it would be some kind of fantasy world, like a living in a dream, but then I came to realize that actually doing it was anything but a dream! It was hard work, and sometimes you had to redo the same thing again and again and again. But the satisfaction of actually performing did make it just as exciting as I had dreamed it would be. In some ways, it really was in its own way a fantasy world. Just different than I expected. 

What was the experience like the first time you saw yourself on the silver screen?

Well, you know! It was very strange, but it was like I was seeing someone else. It was a very strange, sort of an out of body experience. Actually I didn’t enjoy seeing myself up there very much! I was criticizing how I looked on the screen. And I think I could’ve done a better job! 

What was it like the first time you came on a film set as an actress?

Oh, it was exciting! We took a bus out to the yard — the set was outdoors — and I went to make-up and costume. I was playing a student nurse and actually it was a little frustrating because apparently they had expected that I would be a little larger than I was because I had been a ballet dancer and was slim, so we had a problem with getting the costume to fit properly. And the shoes!  The shoes were about two sizes too big. Maybe they used them for other actresses. So that made it a little awkward too, but you know, you get used to wearing shoes a little too big when you have to!

Whom were you in the film with?

The film was Lilith, and I was acting with Warren Beatty and Kim Hunter. In one scene, I was standing right next to Kim Hunter, so we would exchange a little bit of chatter together in between but I didn’t have much to do with Warren Beatty … unfortunately! 

Ms. Edith Holman in Lilith, standing beside Beatty

Eason Rytter and Ms. Edith Holman

Relationship to interviewee: Maternal grandmother