William Holden (April 17, 1918 – ca. November 12, 1981) was an Academy Award-winning American film actor. He was named one of the "Top 10 stars of the year" six times (1954-1958, 1961) and appeared on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list as #25.

Born William Franklin Beedle Jr. in O'Fallon, Illinois, he was the eldest of three sons of William Franklin Beedle, Sr., an industrial chemist, and Mary Blanche Ball, a teacher. The family, who moved to South Pasadena, California when he was three, was of English descent; Holden's paternal great-grandmother, Rebecca Westfield, was born in England in 1817, while some of his mother's ancestors immigrated to the U.S. in the 17th century from Millenback, Lancaster, England.

After graduating from South Pasadena High School, while attending Pasadena Junior College, he became involved in local radio plays. Contrary to legend and theatre publicity, he did not study at the Pasadena Playhouse, nor was he discovered in a play there. Rather, he was spotted by a talent scout from Paramount Pictures in 1937 while appearing as an old man in a play at the Playbox, a private theatre owned by Pasadena Playhouse director Gilmor Brown. His first film role was in Prison Farm the following year.

His first starring role was in Golden Boy (1939), in which he played a violinist turned boxer.

After Columbia Pictures picked up half of his contract, he alternated between starring in several minor pictures for Paramount and Columbia before serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, where he acted in training films. Beginning in 1950, his career rebounded when Billy Wilder tapped him to star as the down-at-the-heels screenwriter Joe Gillis who is taken in by faded silent-screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in Sunset Boulevard, for which Holden earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Following this breakthrough film, he played a series of roles that combined good looks with cynical detachment, including the prisoner-of-war entrepreneur in Stalag 17 (1953), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. However, Holden said he thought Burt Lancaster should have won for From Here to Eternity. According to interviews with cast members on the Stalag 17 Special Edition DVD, Holden was told by his wife that he didn't win for Stalag 17; it was a belated (and overdue) win for Sunset Boulevard. Holden's acceptance speech for his Academy Award was among the shortest on record: "Thank you!"

Other roles in this period include a pressured young engineer/family man in Executive Suite (1954), an acerbic playwright in The Country Girl (1954), a conflicted jet pilot in the Korean War film The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), a wandering braggart in Picnic (1955), a dashing war correspondent in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), an ill-fated prisoner in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and a WWII tug boat captain in The Key (1958).

He also played a number of sunnier roles in light comedy, such as a handsome architect pursuing virginal Maggie McNamara in The Moon is Blue (1953), Judy Holliday's tutor in Born Yesterday (1950), a playwright captivated by Ginger Rogers' character in Forever Female (1953) and Humphrey Bogart's younger playboy brother in Sabrina (1954).

He was unsuccessfully pursued by director Alfred Hitchcock to star in Strangers on a Train (1951) and The Trouble with Harry (1955), and was also considered for North by Northwest (1959) had the hard-to-get Cary Grant declined the role.

In 1960, he starred opposite Nancy Kwan in the film adaptation of the novel The World of Suzie Wong, playing a struggling artist captivated by a free-spirited Hong Kong prostitute.

However, Holden starred in his share of forgettable movies --which he was forced to do by studio contracts -- such as Paris When It Sizzles (1964), also co-starring Audrey Hepburn, which was a box-office flop. By the mid-1960s, his roles were having less critical and commercial impact.

In 1969, he starred in director Sam Peckinpah's graphically violent Western The Wild Bunch, winning much acclaim. Five years later, he starred with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in the blockbuster, The Towering Inferno. He was also praised for his Oscar-nominated leading performance in Sidney Lumet's Network (1976), playing an older version of the character type he had perfected in the 1950s, only now more jaded and aware of his own mortality. In 1980, Holden appeared in The Earthling with child actor Ricky Schroder, playing a loner dying of cancer who goes to the Australian outback to end his days, meets a young boy whose parents have been killed in an accident, and teaches him how to survive. Schroder later named one of his sons Holden.

Holden was married to actress Brenda Marshall from 1941 until their divorce (after many long separations) in 1971. They had two sons, Peter Westfield (born in 1944) and Scott Porter (born in 1946). He also adopted Virginia, his wife's daughter from her first marriage.

Holden had a busy social life; he was best man at the marriage of his friend Ronald Reagan to Nancy Davis in 1952. He maintained a home in Switzerland and also spent much of his time working for wildlife conservation as a managing partner in an animal preserve in Africa. His Mount Kenya Safari Club in Nanyuki, Kenya (founded 1959) became a mecca for the international jet set.

He began a long relationship with actress Stefanie Powers which sparked her interest in animal welfare. (After his death, Powers became the President of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation and a director of their Mount Kenya Game Ranch).

Throughout his lifetime, Holden had reported affairs with a number of Hollywood actresses, including Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Capucine, and a "yearly rendezvous" with Shelley Winters.

Holden also suffered from alcoholism and depression. In 1966, he was involved in a car accident in Italy in which the other driver was killed. It was determined that Holden had been driving under the influence of alcohol; he was charged with vehicular manslaughter and received an eight-month suspended prison sentence. Holden was overcome with guilt, and friends said this led to even heavier bouts of drinking.

Holden was a supporter of the United States Republican Party, though unlike his friend Ronald Reagan he was never involved in politics.

His younger brother, Robert W. "Bobbie" Beedle, was a Navy fighter pilot who was killed in action in World War II, on January 5, 1945. After The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955) was released, Beedle was remembered by his squadron-mates as having been very much like Holden's character Lt. Harry Brubaker.

William Holden died as the result of a fall in his high-rise apartment on the seaside cliffs of Santa Monica, California in November 1981. Holden was alone and heavily intoxicated when he apparently slipped on a throw rug, severely gashed his head on a night table, and bled to death. Evidence suggests he was conscious for at least half-an-hour after the fall but may not have realized the severity of the injury and did not summon aid. His body was found on November 16, but forensic and other evidence suggested he had been dead for several days and most likely died on November 12. He was 63 years old.

His body was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

Although it is thought by some that J. D. Salinger got the name for his hero Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye when he saw a marquee for Dear Ruth (1947), starring William Holden and Joan Caulfield, Salinger's first Holden Caulfield story, "I'm Crazy," appeared in Collier's magazine on December 22, 1945, a year-and-a-half before this movie came out.

* Holden appeared as himself in an episode of I Love Lucy. After accidentally causing a waiter to dump a pie on him at the Brown Derby restaurant, Lucy (Lucille Ball) gets to meet Holden face to face, thanks to Ricky (Desi Arnaz). Fearing he will remember the incident, Lucy disguises herself, including a plastic nose that she sets on fire while lighting a cigarette. In a later episode, John Wayne says he accused Holden of fabricating the story. After meeting Lucy, Wayne concedes "I owe Bill Holden an apology!"

*In Walker Percy's novel The Moviegoer, the main character, Binx Bolling, has an encounter with William Holden.

*The band Too Much Joy has a song that combines Holden's name with that of Salinger's creation, "William Holden Caulfield".

*In an episode of M*A*S*H* where the staff surprises Colonel Potter on his anniversary, local salesman Cho Man Chin is offering a selection of goods to Frank Burns (Larry Linville) and Major Houlihan (Loretta Swit). He proposes they buy the Colonel a suit, holds it up against Frank's chest and says "William Holden" ! *According to Suzanne Vega, Holden is the actor mentioned in the lyrics of her song "Tom's Diner" (and has said a story about his death was on the New York Post's front page the day she wrote it): :I open up the paper :There's a story of an actor :Who had died while he was drinking :It was no one I had heard of

*In "The Good Samaritan", Season 3, Episode 17 of Seinfeld, George is asked out by Elaine's married friend after he says "God bless you" and her husband does not. On the thought of adultery, George says, "Oh, my God, an affair. That's so adult. It's like with stockings and martinis, and William Holden. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't cost me any money".

*Canadian country rock band Blue Rodeo made reference to William Holden on their song "Floating" off their debut release "Outskirts": :Just throw me a line :That's all that I ask :Well, it's sink or swim and I'm going fast :I need love and it's you :And I feel like William Holden floating in a pool.

*Best Actor Nomination for Sunset Boulevard (1951) *Best Actor Award for Stalag 17 (1954) *Best Actor Nomination for Network (1977)

*Prison Farm (1938) *Million Dollar Legs (1939) *Golden Boy (1939) *Invisible Stripes (1939) *Our Town (1940) *Those Were the Days! (1940) *Arizona (1940) *I Wanted Wings (1941) *Texas (1941) *The Fleet's In (1942) *The Remarkable Andrew (1942) *Meet the Stewarts (1942) *Reconnaissance Pilot (1943) (short subject) *Young and Willing (1943) aka Out of the Frying Pan *Wings Up (1943) (short subject) *Blaze of Noon (1947) *Dear Ruth (1947) *Variety Girl (1947) *The Man from Colorado (1948) *Rachel and the Stranger (1948) *Apartment for Peggy (1948) *The Dark Past (1948) *Streets of Laredo (1949) *Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949) *Dear Wife (1949) *Father Is a Bachelor (1950) *Sunset Boulevard (1950) *Union Station (1950) *Born Yesterday (1950) *You Can Change the World (1951) (short subject) *Force of Arms (1951) *Submarine Command (1951) *Boots Malone (1952) *The Turning Point (1952) *Stalag 17 (1953) *The Moon Is Blue (1953) (also appeared, uncredited, in the German version) *Forever Female (1953) *Escape from Fort Bravo (1953) *Executive Suite (1954)

*Sabrina (1954) *Musashi Miyamoto (1954) (narrator in original US version) *The Country Girl (1954) *The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955) *Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) *Picnic (1955) *The Proud and Profane (1956) *Toward the Unknown (1956) *The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) *The Key (1958) *The Horse Soldiers (1959) *The World of Suzie Wong (1960) *Et Par ord om Danmark (1960) (documentary) (narrator in English version) *Satan Never Sleeps (1962) *The Counterfeit Traitor (1962) *Lykke og krone (1962) (documentary) *The Lion (1962) *Paris, When It Sizzles (1964) *The 7th Dawn (1964) *Alvarez Kelly (1966) *Casino Royale (1967) *The Devil's Brigade (1968) *The Wild Bunch (1969) *The Christmas Tree (1969) *The Moviemakers (1971) (short subject) *Wild Rovers (1971) *The Revengers (1972) *Breezy (1973) *Open Season (1974) *The Towering Inferno (1974) *Network (1976) *Fedora (1978) *Damien: Omen II (1978) *Escape to Athena (1979) (uncredited as cigar smoking prisoner) *Ashanti (1979) *When Time Ran Out (1980) *The Earthling (1980) *S.O.B. (1981)

* * * Profile @ Turner Classic Movies * William Holden Wildlife Foundation