- Son of players Taylor Holmes and Edna Phillips.
- Brother of actor Phillips Holmes.
- Took his life with sleeping pills after a separation from his wife, millionaire torch singer Libby Holman. According to Robert La Guardia's biography on Montgomery Clift, Ralph was reportedly a depressed homosexual. While Libby was attracted to homosexuals, this claim that he was gay is in dispute. "Rafe", as he was known to his friends, was an alcoholic who suffered from postwar trauma after his experiences during WWII, which took the life of his brother Phillips Holmes. Rafe's failed marriage was more of a symptom of his chronic depression than the cause of his suicide.
- Killed himself about a month after his separation from wife Libby Holman. She remarried but committed suicide as well in 1971.
- Appeared on and off-Broadway for a brief period of time and also appeared in summer stock with wife Libby Holman.
- Wife Libby Holman eloped with Ralph, who was ten years her junior, on the rebound. She dated his older brother Phillips Holmes for many years prior.
- Both he and brother Phillips Holmes enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941. Ralph became a pilot. Phillips attended the Air Ground School to become a pilot but was killed shortly after graduating when a plane carrying him and five classmates collided with another aircraft on its way to Ottawa.
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