Film actor, born in O'Fallon, Illinois, USA. He took part in radio plays before making his film debut in Million Dollar Legs (1939). Later films include Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Wild Bunch (1969), and The Network (1973), and he won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in Stalag 17 (1953).
| William Holden | |
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| Birth name | Billium Franklin Beedle Jr. |
| Born |
April 17, 1918 O'Fallon, Illinois, USA |
| Died |
circa November 12, 1981 Santa Monica, California, USA |
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Academy Awards |
Best Actor 1953 Stalag 17 |
William Holden (April 17, 1918 - November 16, 1981) was an Academy Awards-winning American film actor.
Early life and career
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.
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 an Academy Award for Best Actor), the pressured young engineer/family man in Executive Suite (1954), the acerbic playwright in The Country Girl (1954), the wandering braggart in Picnic (1955), the dashing war correspondent in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), the ill-fated prisoner in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and a U-Boat captain in The Key (1958). He also played a number of sunnier roles in light comedy, such as the 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 in Forever Female (1953) and Humphrey Bogart's younger playboy brother (who romances Audrey Hepburn) in Sabrina (1954).
In 1960, he starred opposite Nancy Kwan in the film adaptation of the novel The World of Suzie Wong.
Later career
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.
Private life
Holden was married to actress Brenda Marshall from 1941 until their divorce (after many long separations) in 1971.
Holden is believed to have had a seven-year relationship with Eva May Hoffman, the wife of composer Emil Newman, and visual evidence strongly supports the allegation that he was the biological father of Hoffman and Newman's children Arlene and William.
Death
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. Salinger named the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye "Holden Caulfield" after seeing a movie theater marquee listing the film's two stars: Holden, and Joan Caulfield. 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): His role in Stalag 17 earned him a Best Actor Academy Award.
Academy Awards and Nominations
Best Actor Nomination for Sunset Boulevard (1951) Best Actor Award for Stalag 17 (1954) Best Actor Nomination for Network (1977)|
Preceded by: Gary Cooper for High Noon |
Academy Award for Best Actor 1953 for Stalag 17 |
Succeeded by: Marlon Brando for On the Waterfront |
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