Hope Holiday

Margie MacDougall, Jack Lemmon's partner in self-pity on Christmas Eve night, in the Billy Wilder film The Apartment (1960).

Holiday was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Manhattan. Her father, a burlesque entertainer who was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, changed his name from Allen Zaslawsky to Allen Zee before his daughters were born. She attended Public School 117 in Jamaica, Queens, and then went to Forest Hills High School.

She dropped out of high school and sang at the Copacabana nightclub. Her father was also described by Ed Sullivan as a "Capitol Theater exec." Her mother, Doris, worked in the production department at radio station WHN in New York City. Her father at one time was night manager of WHN. She has an older sister, Judy, whose stage name was Judy Sinclair.

Name change

A column in the June 30, 1954, issue of the Brooklyn Eagle noted Zee's change of names: "At the Guy Lombardo extravaganza, 'Arabian Night,' the lassie that almost walked away with the show was Hope Holiday. Hope, before this show, used the name of Hope Zee ..." She later recalled:

I had a featured role as the Teeny Weeny Genie and got to sing two songs. Before this show I had been billed as "Hope Zee," but since my father was a producer of the show along with Lombardo, he purposely changed my name in the program, as he didn't want audiences thinking there was any nepotism involved. I literally had no say in choosing my new name. Since he loved Judy Holliday, Daddy decided to call me "Hope Holiday" without the extra "L." I hated the name at first but ending up keeping it.

Stage

Holiday has extensive Broadway musical comedy background, beginning with dancing in the chorus lines in Top Banana and Guys and Dolls. As Hope Zee, she also was understudy to Rose Marie in Top Banana, but when the star had to be gone for a week, Zee was laid off, and Audrey Meadows was hired to take over the part. In 1949, she played Fifi and was a member of the singing ensemble of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In the 1956 Broadway production of Li'l Abner, Holiday was understudy for Mammy Yokum in addition to being a featured dancer.

Singing

In the early 1950s, Holiday (billed as Hope Zee) sang with Ralph Flanagan's orchestra. An August 4, 1950, newspaper column by Dorothy Kilgallen reported, "Hope Zee ... quit 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' last week to become vocalist with Ralph Flanagan's band ..."

Holiday is the widow of actor Frank Marth. They were married April 9, 1967. Marth died in January 2014.

In February 2022, Holiday and fellow actress Karen Sharpe gave an interview to Vanity Fair alleging incidents of sexual assault and harassment by the late comic actor Jerry Lewis, who died in 2017. Holiday detailed an incident on the set of The Ladies Man (1961) in which Lewis lured her to his dressing room, pressed a button to lock the door, and masturbated in her presence without her consent. She further alleged that when she slapped him during a confrontation the following day, production was briefly halted; the two never spoke again.