The emergency services rushed to Muiderberg late last night, but resuscitation of Viola Holt (76) was of no avail: the Netherlands has lost a TV icon. “She was done with that world.”
Viola Holt died of natural causes, which came as a shock to her relatives: she still seemed very fit. The former presenter of The 5 Hour Show also posted a very nice tweet yesterday, just a few hours before her death, about how happy she was at that moment. No one could have imagined then what would happen that evening.
Moments of happiness
Viola’s farewell tweet is ‘touchingly beautiful’, says show expert Aran Bade. The presenter wrote: “What a nice day: housework, shopping, walk in the woods, one whiskey on the terrace, Thai food on the stove, and looking at the beautiful big moon, enjoying the Peer Gynt suite on the radio.”
“It’s all something to be happy about, and grateful for unexpected moments of happiness.”
‘Things aren’t going well’
Well-known psychic Thomas Woolthuis (66) received an ominous call last night from her husband Peter, with whom she had been together for 37 years. “He called and said, ‘Things aren’t going well.’ At that moment I felt it. Even before he said it, I knew she had died,” he says The Telegraph.
“We immediately got into the car. We drove towards Muiderberg in the dark. Almost no traffic. And you know where you are driving. (…) We sat together all night until it was almost light. No one wanted to go home. You stay together. You hold each other, literally and in words.”
Energetic age
Thomas talks about how healthy Viola was until the end. “She was actually doing well. She had been so full of life lately. She was exercising again, feeling fit, paying attention to everything she did and hardly drinking. She always said: ‘My energetic age is 60.’ She was in the middle of life.”
In recent years, Viola has been much concerned with spirituality. “I was able to initiate her into Reiki myself. She was done with the harsh broadcasting world. She was looking for peace and warmth. She found that in spirituality. We shared that.”
Small circle
There is no big showbiz funeral awaiting Viola. “It will be very small. Only the people who really belonged to her heart. With attention and love. Just the way she lived.”
In any case, a great TV icon has passed away, says Gordon Instagram. “What a shock to also have to miss Viola after Loretta. She was a welcome guest in Blushing. I remember Viola as a very intelligent woman and especially one who lived a long life! Our first meeting was at The 5 Hour Show and after that our bond was forever.”
Sledgehammer blow
Gordon hopes Viola is at peace. “I have been seriously concerned about her health lately, but this news still comes as a blow. She was the leading lady of afternoon television, an icon that we will forever hold in our hearts. She believed in angels and I hope she has now become one of them. 💔”
Jan de Hoop is also mourning. He visited Viola annually in Mexico, where she had a restaurant. “We went on holiday there every year and had hours of conversations on the beach. Then it was a completely different Viola than on television, more outspoken, that’s where I got to know her as a person. She really was an icon of television,” he says. RTL.