Her father was executive director of the foundation for the Jewish National Fund of America (1951–1958),[2][3] and a political activist who ran unsuccessfully six times between 1919 and 1938 as a Socialist Party candidate for the New York state Legislature.

[7][8] Holliday began her show business career in 1938 as part of a nightclub act called The Revuers, whose other members were Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Alvin Hammer, John Frank and Esther Cohen.

[8][9] They played engagements in New York night clubs including the Village Vanguard, Spivy's Roof, the Blue Angel, and the Rainbow Room, and the Trocadero in Hollywood, California.

She found it difficult to perform on stage in smoke-filled rooms while patrons over-imbibed, heckled and fought with each other, but deemed entertainers successful if they persevered in such atmospheres.

She made her Broadway debut on March 20, 1945, at the Belasco Theatre in Kiss Them for Me, and was one of the recipients that year of the Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Female Actress.

[7][10][14] When Columbia bought the rights to adapt Born Yesterday to film, studio boss Harry Cohn initially would not consider casting the Hollywood unknown, even though Holliday received rave reviews for her Broadway performance.

Kanin, along with George Cukor, Spencer Tracy, and Katharine Hepburn conspired to promote Holliday by offering her a key part in the Tracy-Hepburn film Adam's Rib (1949).

"[20] In 1950, Holliday's name appeared on a list of 151 "pro-Communist" artists in the conservative publication Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and TV.

In November 1956, Holliday returned to Broadway, starring in the musical Bells Are Ringing with book and lyrics by her Revuers friends, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and directed by Jerome Robbins.

[25] Of Holliday's performance in the stage musical, Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times: Nothing has happened to the shrill little moll whom the town loved in Born Yesterday.

The squeaky voice, the embarrassed giggle, the brassy naivete, the dimples, the teeter-totter walk fortunately remain unimpaired ... Miss Holliday now adds a trunk-full of song-and-dance routines...Without losing any of that doll-like personality, she is now singing music by Jule Styne and dancing numbers composed by Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse.

[27][28] Her last role was in the stage musical Hot Spot, co-starring newcomers such as Joseph Campanella and Mary Louise Wilson, which closed after 43 performances on May 25, 1963.