Beginning her career on stage in the late 1950s, Holly was perhaps best known for her role as Carla Gray–Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live (1968–1980; 1983–1985).

[4] Her father's grandmother was Susan Smith McKinney Steward, the third African-American woman to earn a medical degree, and the first in New York state.

[5] A great-great-grandfather was Sylvanus Smith, one of many leaders encouraging African American people to purchase land in Kings County, New York (later known as the Weeksville settlement).

[5] Her maternal aunt was Anna Arnold Hedgeman, a civil rights leader, politician, educator, and writer who served under President Harry Truman as executive director of the National Council for a Permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission.

[9] Holly came to the attention of Agnes Nixon, the creator of One Life to Live, after writing a letter to the editor of The New York Times about what it was like to be a light-skinned African American.

[10] "She is beautiful, plainly cultured, has one of the most alive faces, full of lovely strength, ever to brighten our tube," wrote television reporter Jack O'Brian in 1969.

The fact that Carla was an African-American posing as white was revealed when Sadie Gray, played by Lillian Hayman, was identified as her mother.

[15] Holly made a return to the small screen in 2002, when she appeared as Selena Frey in the television film 10,000 Black Men Named George, alongside Andre Braugher and Mario Van Peebles.