David Holliday

David Holliday (August 4, 1937 – March 26, 1999) was an American actor and television voice actor, born in Illinois, whose career spanned Broadway, West End productions, regional theater, and television. He is widely recognized as the voice of Virgil Tracy, pilot of Thunderbird 2, across all 26 episodes of the first series of Thunderbirds (1965–66).

Holliday's stage career began taking shape in 1956 when he traveled to New York and auditioned for West Side Story, securing the minor role of Glad Hand and an understudy position for Tony in the London production. He subsequently played the lead role of Tony in the West End, and during that period he encountered a young David Jason, then working as an electrician, to whom Holliday gave tickets to the show. The production toured England, Scotland, and Scandinavia, and Holliday reprised the role of Tony at the St. Louis Municipal Opera House in both 1963 and 1967. He recorded two 1966 London cast recordings of the show — one opposite Jill Martin and another opposite Diane Todd in the role of Maria. During this stretch of his career, he also toured for six months in South Africa as Macheath in The Beggar's Opera, commuting regularly between Britain, Europe, the United States, and South Africa over the course of roughly a decade.

In 1962, a phone call from British actor-director Noël Coward led to Holliday being cast as John Van Mier in the London production of Sail Away at the Savoy Theatre, alongside Elaine Stritch, who reprised her Broadway role as Mimi Paragon. That production ran for 265 performances. Two years later, in 1964, Holliday took the lead role of Edward Middleton in The Wayward Way, a musical adaptation of The Drunkard, at the New Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. The cast included Jim Dale as William Dowton and Cheryl Kennedy as Agnes Dowton, among others. September 1965 brought him to the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, where he played Dr. Seward in the musical Dearest Dracula, a production that also featured John Gower as Dracula and Mary Millar as Lucy.

In 1967, a meeting in New York with Danish actor-director Preben Kaas resulted in Holliday being cast as Frank Butler in the Danish-language production of Annie Get Your Gun at the Falconer Theatre in Copenhagen, running from 1967 to 1968, with Daimi Gentle as Annie. The role required him to sing and speak entirely in Danish, which he prepared for through intensive phonetics study; a Danish cast recording of the production was released on Metronome Records (HLP 10304, 1968). The production ran for six months.

Holliday's longest-running Broadway engagement was as the alternate to Richard Kiley in the role of Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, a position he held from 1965 to 1971. In that production he played Don Quixote at matinee performances and Dr. Carrasco in the evenings. He returned to the show in its 1992 Broadway revival in the role of the innkeeper. His portrayal of Georges in Coco (1969–70) earned him a Theatre World Award in 1970. Additional Broadway credits include Music Is (1976), Perfectly Frank (1980), and Irene. He also appeared in the Off-Broadway production Nevertheless They Laugh in 1971.

His regional theater work was extensive. He made his Melody Top–Milwaukee Summer Stock Theatre debut in 1968 in Fanny and Where's Charley. Among his many lead roles in regional productions were Tommy Albright in Brigadoon (1973), Carl-Magnus in A Little Night Music (1976), Emile De Becque in South Pacific (1985), and Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun opposite Jo Anne Worley as Annie (1982). Through the Kenley Players he appeared as Tony in West Side Story opposite Anna Maria Alberghetti, as Robert Baker in Wonderful Town opposite Cloris Leachman, as Edward Rutledge in 1776 opposite Joel Grey as John Adams, as Bill Sikes in Oliver! opposite Vincent Price as Fagin, as Beverly Carlton in The Man Who Came to Dinner opposite Jack Cassidy, as Donald Marshall in Irene opposite Jane Powell, and as Karl in Music in the Air opposite Giorgio Tozzi. His non-singing stage roles included Henry II in The Lion in Winter at Stage Company of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach (1981), Martin Dysart in a 1982 production of Equus at Florida Atlantic University, and touring roles in England as Starbuck in The Rainmaker and Nick in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

On television, beyond his work on Thunderbirds, Holliday appeared in five episodes of the British soap opera Coronation Street, aired in May 1973, playing Tom Schofield, great-nephew of Ena Sharples. Those episodes aired on May 14, 16, 21, 23, and 30 (episodes #1286, #1287, #1288, #1289, and #1291), with episode #1289 included on the Coronation Street 1973 Classic 8 Episodes DVD.

Holliday was a five-time Carbonell Award nominee and four-time winner for Best Actor in Musicals. He shared the 1979–80 award for Man of La Mancha at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre with Gregg Baker, was nominated in the 1980–81 season for Camelot at the same venue, and won outright in the 1985–86 season for Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. He received a joint win in the 1992–93 season for Man of La Mancha and South Pacific at the Jupiter Theatre, and won again in the 1993–94 season for The Most Happy Fella, also at the Jupiter Theatre.

Holliday died of cancer on March 26, 1999, at the age of 61.