Biography

William Holden was born William Franklin Beedle, Jr., in O'Fallon, Illinois, son of William Franklin Beedle (1891–1967), an industrial chemist, and his wife Mary Blanche Ball (1898–1990), a schoolteacher. He had two younger brothers, Robert Westfield Beedle (1921–1944) and Richard P. Beedle (1924–1964). One of his father's grandmothers, Rebecca Westfield, was born in England in 1817, while some of his mother's ancestors settled in Virginia's Lancaster County after emigrating from England in the 17th century. His younger brother, Robert W. "Bobbie" Beedle, became a U.S. Navy fighter pilot and was killed in action in World War II, over New Ireland, a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific, on January 5, 1944.

His family moved to South Pasadena when he was three. After graduating from South Pasadena High School, William attended Pasadena Junior College, where he became involved in local radio plays. A version of how he obtained his stage name "Holden" is based on a statement by George Ross of Billboard: "William Holden, the lad just signed for the coveted lead in Golden Boy, used to be Bill Beadle. And here is how he obtained his new movie name. On the Columbia lot is an assistant director and scout named Harold Winston. Not long ago he was divorced from the actress, Gloria Holden, but carried the torch after the marital rift. Winston was one of those who discovered the Golden Boy newcomer and who renamed him—in honor of his former spouse!"

William's first starring role was in Golden Boy (1939), co-starring Barbara Stanwyck, in which he played a violinist-turned-boxer. He was still an unknown actor at the time, while Barbara was already a film star. She liked William and went out of her way to help him succeed, devoting her personal time to coaching and encouraging him, which made them into lifelong friends. When she received her Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony, William had died in an accident just a few months prior. At the end of her acceptance speech, she paid him a personal tribute: "I loved him very much, and I miss him. He always wished that I would get an Oscar. And so tonight, my golden boy, you got your wish".

Next he starred with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart in the Warner Bros. gangster epic Invisible Stripes. Later the same year, he followed up with the role of George Gibbs in the film adaptation of Our Town. After Columbia Pictures picked up half of his contract, he alternated between starring in several minor pictures for Paramount and Columbia before serving as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, where he acted in training films for the First Motion Picture Unit. His career took off in 1950 when Billy Wilder tapped him to star in Sunset Boulevard, in which he played a down-at-the-heels screenwriter who gets taken in by a faded silent-screen star, played by Gloria Swanson. William earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination with the part.

Getting the part was a lucky break for William, as the role was initially cast with Montgomery Clift, who backed out of his contract. Gloria later said, "Bill Holden was a man I could have fallen in love with. He was perfection on and off-screen."  And Billy himself commented, "Bill was a complex guy, a totally honorable friend. He was a genuine star. Every woman was in love with him."

Following this breakthrough film, his career quickly grew as William played a series of roles that combined good looks with cynical detachment, including a prisoner-of-war entrepreneur in Stalag 17 (1953), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor,  a pressured young engineer/family man in Executive Suite (1954), an acerbic stage director in The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly,  a conflicted jet pilot in the Korean War film The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954),  a wandering college football star in Picnic (1955),  a dashing war correspondent in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), his most widely recognized role as an ill-fated prisoner in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) with Alec Guinness, a World War II tug boat captain in The Key (1958),  and an American Civil War military surgeon in John Ford's The Horse Soldiers (1959) opposite John Wayne. He played a number of sunnier roles in light comedy, such as the handsome architect pursuing virginal Maggie McNamara in the controversial production code-breaking The Moon Is Blue (1953), as Judy Holliday's tutor in Born Yesterday (1950), and as a playwright captivated by Ginger Rogers' character in Forever Female (1953).

He co-starred as Humphrey Bogart's younger brother, a carefree playboy, in Sabrina (1954),  played by Audrey Hepburn. It was William's third film with director Billy Wilder.

In 1954, William was featured on the cover of Life. On February 7, 1955, he appeared as a guest star on I Love Lucy as himself.   His career peaked in 1957 with the enormous success of The Bridge on the River Kwai, but William spent the next several years starring in a number of films that rarely succeeded commercially or critically. By the mid-1960s, the quality of his roles and films had noticeably diminished.

In 1969, William made a comeback when he starred in director Sam Peckinpah's graphically violent Western The Wild Bunch, winning much acclaim. Also in 1969, Holden starred in director Terence Young's family film L'Arbre de Noël, co-starring Italian actress Virna Lisi and French actor Bourvil, based on the novel of the same name by Michel Bataille. This film was originally released in the United States as The Christmas Tree and on home video as When Wolves Cry.

For television roles in 1974, William won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his portrayal of a cynical, tough veteran LAPD street cop in the television film The Blue Knight, based upon the best-selling Joseph Wambaugh novel of the same name.

In 1973, Wiliam starred with Kay Lenz in movie directed by Clint Eastwood called Breezy.  Also in 1974, William starred with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in the critically acclaimed disaster film The Towering Inferno, which became a box-office smash and one of the highest-grossing films of Wiliam's career. Two years later, he was praised for his Oscar-nominated leading performance in Sidney Lumet's classic Network (1976), an examination of the media written by Paddy Chayefsky, playing an older version of the character type for which he had become iconic in the 1950s, only now more jaded and aware of his own mortality. In 1980, William appeared in The Earthling with popular 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.

During his last years, he appeared in his second Irwin Allen film, When Time Ran Out and Blake Edwards' S.O.B.

William Holden died on November 12, 1981. In accordance with his wishes, no funeral or memorial service was held.

For his contribution to the film industry, William has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1651 Vine Street.  He also has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.  His death was noted by singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, whose 1987 song "Tom's Diner" (about a sequence of events one morning in 1981) included a mention of reading a newspaper article about "an actor who had died while he was drinking". Vega subsequently confirmed that this was a reference to William.

When William died, President Ronald Reagan released a statement, saying, "I have a great feeling of grief. We were close friends for many years. What do you say about a longtime friend - a sense of personal loss, a fine man. Our friendship never waned.”