RIP Baron Samedi: James Bond Actor Geoffrey Holder Dies, Aged 84

Actor Geoffrey Holder, best known for playing voodoo villain Baron Samedi in James Bond’s ‘Live and Let Die’, has died aged 84. A spokesperson for the family revealed he died from complication of pneumonia on Sunday in Manhattan.

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The Trinidadian was a Tony Award-winning stage director and costume designer as well as an accomplished actor and choreographer on stage and screen. His most famous movie roles were as top-hatted Baron Samedi opposite Roger Moore in the 1973 Bond adventure, and as Punjab, Daddy Warbucks’ personal butler in ‘Annie’.

Above: Holder in 2010

It was his work on the Broadway production of ‘The Wiz’, an all-black reimagining of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in 1975 that would earn him his Tony Awards for direction and costume design.

The actor’s distinctive booming voice would be utilized to great effect in his later years, becoming a sought after voice over artist, most famously providing narration in Tim Burton’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ in 2005.

Above: Holder with his son Leo

Holder moved to New York in the 1950s, making his Broadway debut in 1954 in ‘The House of Flowers’ playing Baron Samedi, the spirit of death, sex, and resurrection in Haitian Voodoo culture, and role he would later reprise for ‘Live and Let Die’.

Holder is survived by his wife Carmen de Lavallade, and son Leo.

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Image credits: Press Association/Rex Features