Trivia

He was very instrumental in animal preservation in Africa. In the 1970s he purchased a large acreage of land with his own money and began an animal sanctuary. His love of the wild animal was shared with his then companion Stefanie Powers (from Hart to Hart (1979)). He would appear on talk shows to promote the saving of animals and to spread the word of anti-poaching and illegal animal trade.

He was so grateful to Barbara Stanwyck for her insistence on casting him in Golden Boy (1939), his first big role, that he reportedly sent her flowers every year on the anniversary of the first day of the filming.

Although married to Brenda Marshall for over 30 years, they were actually separated for most of their marriage. At the time of his death, he was the companion of Stefanie Powers.

Was an avid art collector. His private collection at his exclusive hilltop home in Palm Springs featured antique Asian art. Upon his death, the priceless collection was donated to the Palm Springs Museum of Art, where it is proudly displayed today.

Billy Wilder on Holden's death: "If someone had said to me, 'Holden's dead,' I would have assumed that he had been gored by a water buffalo in Kenya, that he had died in a plane crash approaching Hong Kong, that a crazed, jealous woman had shot him, and he drowned in a swimming pool. But to be killed by a bottle of vodka and a night table - what a lousy fade-out of a great guy!".

Felt he didn't deserve the Academy Award for Best Actor for Stalag 17 (1953), and that the award should have gone to Burt Lancaster for From Here to Eternity (1953). His wife also felt that the honor was just a belated apology for snubbing his nomination for Sunset Boulevard (1950).

Holden said that, at some point, he lost his passion for acting and that it eventually just became a job so that he could support himself.

Won Best Actor for his role in Stalag 17 (1953). When accepting his statue at the Acadamy Awards, simply stated, "Thank you" and walked off.

Brian Donlevy was his best man when Holden married Brenda Marshall in 1941. A Congregationalist Church service was planned in Las Vegas. Since.William and Brian were still filming The Remarkable Andrew (1942), there were delays and it was 3am before they arrived for the ceremony. By that time the minister had long gone to bed. It was 4pm Sunday before another preacher could be found to perform the wedding. After they were married, they had a champagne breakfast and hopped a plane back to Los Angeles so he and Brian could wrap up shooting, and Brenda was off to Canada to film some location footage that she was still working on. It would be three more months before they would have a real honeymoon (one mishap after another postponed it ... including the TWO of them having to undergo emergency appendectomies).

Appeared in nine films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Our Town (1940), Born Yesterday (1950), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Country Girl (1954), Picnic (1955), Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Towering Inferno (1974) and Network (1976). Of those, only The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) won in the category. In both 1950 and 1955, he appeared in two Best Picture nominees.

Holden did not legally change his name from Beedle until he joined the USAF in 1942. For a time in 1943, Holden shared an apartment in Ft. Worth, Texas with baseball superstar Hank Greenberg while both of them were serving stateside in WWII. Holden's younger brother, Robert Beedle, was actually a Navy fighter pilot who was killed in action in World War II, and after The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) was released, he was remembered by his squadron-mates as having been very much like Holden's character of Lt. Harry Brubaker in that movie.

Turned down Marlon Brando's role in Sayonara (1957) in order to make The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

A registered Republican, he rarely involved himself in political campaigns. In 1947, he joined the Committee for the First Amendment to oppose blacklisting in Hollywood. He was good friends with two blacklistees, Dalton Trumbo and Larry Parks.

A hygiene fanatic, he reportedly showered up to four times daily.

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#57). (1995)

Holden was the best man at the 1952 wedding of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan.

In the last years of his life he increasingly suffered from emphysema.

Owned the "Mount Kenya Safari Club" with his business partners oil billionaire Ray Ryan and Swiss financier Carl Hirschmann. The most elite private members' club in the world. Membership was by invitation only and members included Bing Crosby, David Lean, Charles Chaplin, Steve McQueen, Conrad Hilton, Winston Churchill and Man Singh II. Stefanie Powers and John Hurt still keep houses adjoining the club.

A Japanophile, he befriended actor Toshirô Mifune on a visit to Japan in 1954. After seeing the film Mifune was working on at that time, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954), Holden offered to distribute the film in America. The producers agreed to let Holden record a narration to explain the film when it was released in America. This addition led American critics to wrongly think that Holden had recut the film for American distribution.

He was a favorite actor of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy but disappointed her immensely when she discovered he was a Republican.

Holden bequeathed $250,000 to girlfriend Stefanie Powers, $50,000 to former co-star Capucine, and $50,000 to socialite friend Patricia Stauffer. The bulk of his estate was divided between ex-wife Brenda Marshall, their two actor sons, his step-daughter, his sister, and his mother.

Adopted his stepdaughter, Virginia Holden (Virginia Gaines), from Ardis Ankerson (actress Brenda Marshall)'s first marriage. He and Marshall had two sons together, Peter Westfield "West" Holden (born November 17, 1943) and Scott Holden (Scott Porter Holden, born May 2, 1946). Holden also had a daughter, Arlene, in 1937 with actress Eva May Hoffman. Arlene was raised by her mother and her stepfather, composer Emil Newman.

Was involved in a serious road accident in Italy in July 1966.

Holden was cast as Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch (1969) after the role had been turned down by Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone and Robert Mitchum. Marvin actually accepted the role but pulled out after he was offered a larger pay deal to star in Paint Your Wagon (1969).

Held a press conference in late 1980 to deny newspaper reports that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, which was borne out by his death certificate, which made no mention of any type of cancer.

Was named #25 Actor on the 50 Greatest Screen Legends by the AFI.

Turned down Henry Fonda's role in Mister Roberts (1955).

For The Horse Soldiers (1959) both Holden and John Wayne received $775,000, plus twenty per cent of the overall profits, an unheard-of sum for that time. The final contract, heralded as marking the beginning of mega-deals for Hollywood stars, involved six companies and numbered twice the pages of the movie's script. The film, however, was a critical and commercial failure, with no profits to be shared in the end.

Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8,1960 at 1651 Vine Street in Los Angeles, California.

He was voted the 63rd Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Starred alongside Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954) and Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina (1954). Both actresses were nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for their performances in these films. Kelly won.

He was quoted as saying that Fredric March and Spencer Tracy were his acting ideals.

Turned down The Guns of Navarone (1961) because producer Carl Foreman wouldn't meet his fee of $750,000 + 20% of the gross.

Made two films with Audrey Hepburn: Sabrina (1954) and Paris When It Sizzles (1964).

In the song "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega, the lyrics,

"I open up the paper / there's a story of an actor / who had died while he was drinking / he was no one I had heard of"

refer to Holden, whose death was indeed reported in the New York Post on November 18, 1981, when the song was written. Vega has subsequently expressed embarrassment at these lyrics.

The eldest of three sons born to Mary Blanche Ball (1898-1990) and William Franklin Beedle (1891-1967). He had two brothers, Robert Westfield Beedle (1921-1945) and Richard P. Beedle (1924-1964). The family was of English, Irish, and distant French, ancestry. Mary outlived all three of her sons.

Immortalized in [Canadian band], Blue Rodeo's song "Floating" with the lyric: "I need love and it's you, And I feel like William Holden floating in a pool" - Greg Keelor, the writer of the song, said this: "That sort of quiet desperation at the end of a relationship when nothing's really making sense and I sort of had the image of William Holden at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard (1950) in my head, and I'd always sort of related to that character floating in that pool. I was always hoping for the opportunity to play the gigolo for some wealthy woman. This is a song about identifying with that sort of compromised existence."

Starred alongside Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). Both actresses were nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for their performances in these films. Holliday won.

Holden was vice-president of the Screen Actors Guild (when Ronald Reagan was its president) and Parks Commissioner for Los Angeles.

Had a vasectomy in 1947. Stefanie Powers wanted to have a child with him in the 1970s, but the vasectomy was botched and irreversible.

He has appeared in six films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Sunset Boulevard (1950), Born Yesterday (1950), Sabrina (1954), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Wild Bunch (1969) and Network (1976).

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 (Salinger) 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 on December 22, 1945, a year and a half before this movie came out.

Toward the Unknown (1956) was the only movie made by his production company, "Toluca Productions".

He outlived both of his younger brothers, Robert W. Beedle and Richard P. Beedle, both of whom were killed in airplane crashes in the Pacific Ocean, Robert being killed in action as a US Navy fighter pilot in World War II. Neither brother's remains were recovered, and Holden himself had his own ashes scattered in the Pacific upon his death.

William Holden died one day before his eldest son Peter's 38th birthday. Holden's remains were cremated and his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

Is portrayed by Gabriel Macht in The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000).

"Hollwood Reporter" reported that Holden had signed to play the coach in That Championship Season (1982), but his death precluded that, and he was replaced by Robert Mitchum. Holden had also agreed to co-star with old friend Glenn Ford in "Dime Novel Sunset", which was never made.

Holden appeared among the top ten box office stars six times, as ranked by Quigley Publications' annual poll of movie exhibitors, The Top Ten Money-Making Stars, the definitive list of movie stars' pull at the box office. He actually topped the list in 1956, two years after entering it at #7 in 1954, the year he won the Best Actor Oscar with his performance in Stalag 17 (1953). In 1955, he was ranked #4, then hit #1 for the first and only time in 1956, and then dropped to #7 in 1957 before rebounding slightly to #6 in 1958. After five straight years in the Top 10, he dropped off the list in 1959 and 1960, but reappeared in the Top Ten in 1961, ranked in eighth place. His 1961 appearance among the Top Ten Box Office stars was his last. He moved to Switzerland for tax reasons in 1959, and did not return to live in Hollywood until 1967.

Was originally cast for the lead in The Rainmaker (1956), role eventually played by Burt Lancaster.

Was the Top Box Office Star of 1956, as ranked by Quigley Publications' annual poll of movie exhibitors, The Top Ten Money-Making Stars, the definitive list of movie stars' pull at the box office.