Uber-renaissance thesp/director/choreographer GEOFFREY HOLDER who menaced 007 in “Live and Let Die” is dead at 84.
Holder died from complications of pneumonia at Mount Sinai St. Luke's Hospital in New York.
He began his long career with with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York and worked with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Dance Theatre of Harlem
Holder, a hulking 6-foot-6, won Tonys in 1975 for directing and for designing the costumes for “The Wiz”.
His film roles include top-hatted voodoo villain scene –stealing Baron Samedi in "Live and Let Die" - the first of 007 movies to star Roger Moore, Punjab in the 1982 film version of "Annie," "Doctor Dolittle" with Rex Harrison, "Boomerang" with Eddie Murphy and providing narrating Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".