William Holden Biography

Few Hollywood actors have conveyed spiritual and physical pain with as much charismatic authority as William Holden.

This scion of a wealthy family in the chemical business first registered in films as a clean-cut, affably handsome lead in the 1940s, who matured into more rough and tumble roles.

Along the way his earnest qualities yielded to cynicism, perhaps most notably for writer-director Billy Wilder, in 'Sunset Boulevard', in 1950, and in his Oscar-winning performance in 'Stalag 17'.

Over the years, the rigors of life and drink re-sculpted his features into an expressive leather that gave testimony to the ravages of the moral ambiguity that had characterized many of his best roles.

This quality may have been most eloquently expressed by his central performance as the desperado cowboy, Pike, in Sam Peckinpah's violent autumnal Western classic, 'The Wild Bunch'.

Holden became a star with his first substantial feature role as the boxer-violinist in 'Golden Boy', a part that cast him opposite screen siren Barbara Stanwyck, who would later become his mentor.

Fighting in the Air Force in World War II, he returned to the screen after discharge with a more complex personality, and starred in box-office favorites, 'Dear Ruth' and 'Rachel and the Stranger'.

1950 proved to be Holden's watershed year: he starred in two career landmarks, 'Born Yesterday', as Judy Holliday's culture tutor-cum-lover, and Billy Wilder's 'Sunset Boulevard', as Norma Desmond's hack screenwriter gigolo.

He won a best actor Oscar for his pessimistic POW suspected of being a Nazi informer, in Wilder's 'Stalag 17', in 1953.

Holden went on to become a leading box-office star between 1954-58, including roles in 'Executive Suite', 'Sabrina' and 'Picnic'. He played a pivotal role in 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' and his 1960s successes included 'The Counterfeit Traitor' and a career highlight in Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch'.

The 1970s saw him in 'Towering Inferno' and 'Ashanti', as well the highly acclaimed 'Network', as a conscientious TV executive.

His final film performance came in Blake Edwards' caustically comic look at Hollywood, 'S.O.B', in 1981, and he died following an accidental fall in his apartment in November that year.