Elysa Gardner

@elysagardner, USA TODAY

Geoffrey Holder, a multifaceted artist whose impact on dance, design and pop culture was felt for more than four decades, was, by his own admission, best known for pitching a soft drink.

Holder, who died Sunday at 84 after a bout with pneumonia, became a familiar figure in the '70s and '80s as the face and voice of 7Up ads. A native of the West Indies with an expressive face and booming baritone, he would pop up against tropical backgrounds, trumpeting the "absolutely marvelous" taste of the product — always stressing the "ahhh," to emphasize his distinctive accent.

Successful as they were, those ads didn't hint at the talents of the man who appeared in them. An accomplished dancer and choreographer, he also distinguished himself as a painter, sculptor, photographer, costume designer and composer. He created dances, music and costumes in his work for such prestigious companies such as Alvin Ailey and the Dance Theater of Harlem, and in 1975 won Tony Awards both for choreography and costume design for his work on The Wiz, an all-black adaptation of The Wizard Of Oz that he also directed.

In that show and with other projects, Holder brought the traditions he had absorbed as a student of art and dance in Trinidad and a young artist in New York to his craft with a seamless energy, long before the term "multiculturalism" had become part of the pop vernacular.

Holder's career on Broadway stretched back to 1954, when he appeared in the musical House of Flowers, a collaboration between Truman Capote and Harold Arlen. His next Main Stem appearance was in a historic 1957 revival of Waiting For Godot, in which he played Lucky.

Holder appeared again in the 1964 revue Josephine Baker. For his post-Wiz return, 1978's Timbuktu!, Holder charged himself with direction, choreography, costume design and even the illustration of the Playbill program cover.

He was also a prolific screen actor, his noted roles including a Voodoo-practicing villain in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die and the ruler of a floating island in 1967's Doctor Dolittle. Holder returned to his musical background in a 1982 film adaptation of Annie, playing the good-natured bodyguard and servant Punjab.

Whatever element of caricature may have existed in some of the roles Holder took on, the vivacity and accessible elegance that informed his creative work was always present, and palpable.