Celeste Holm, Oscar-winning actress, dies aged 95

Oscar-winning actress Celeste Holm died Sunday aged 95, a relative said.

Celeste Holm had been hospitalized about two weeks ago with dehydration after a fire in actor Robert De Niro’s apartment in the same Manhattan building.

She had asked her husband on Friday to bring her home, and she spent her final days with her husband, Frank Basile, and other relatives and close friends by her side, said Amy Phillips, a great-niece of Celeste Holm’s who answered the phone at Holm’s apartment on Sunday.

Celeste Holm died around 3.30 a.m. at her longtime apartment on Central Park West, Amy Phillips said.

“I think she wanted to be here, in her home, among her things, with people who loved her,” she said.

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Celeste Holm played everyone from Ado Annie – the girl who just can’t say no in Oklahoma!- to a worldly theatrical agent in the 1991 comedy I Hate Hamlet to guest star turns on TV shows such as Fantasy Island and Love Boat II to Bette Davis’ best friend in All About Eve.

Celeste Holm won the Academy Award in 1947 for best supporting actress for her performance in Gentlemen’s Agreement and received Oscar nominations for Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950).

Celeste Holm was also known for her untiring charity work – at one time she served on nine boards – and was a board member emeritus of the National Mental Health Association.