After leaving England in 1929, Holden and her husband moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for a time.

[1] Holden appeared in 46 motion pictures between 1935 and 1958, and she is best known for her recurring role as Emily Hardy, mother of Mickey Rooney's character in the Andy Hardy film series.

[3] The series was enormously popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Holden was in 15 of the 16 Hardy movies, surpassed only by Rooney, who was in all 16.

Holden is remembered for her performance as Hazel, the mother of Samson (Victor Mature), in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah,[4] in which she utters her character's most notable line: "He wants to marry a Philistine!"

[5] She died in Los Angeles, California, aged 79, from cancer.