William Holden

Born William Franklin Beedle Jr. in O'Fallon, Illinois on April 17, 1918, William Holden achieved sudden stardom at age 21 as the violin-playing boxer in "Golden Boy" (1939). After serving as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, Holden redefined himself as the definitive cynical, complex postwar American leading man in Billy Wilder's noir masterpiece "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), playing the doomed screenwriter Joe Gillis and receiving his first Academy Award nomination. In 1953, Wilder directed Holden in "Stalag 17" as J.J. Sefton, the opportunistic, cynical POW accused of being an informer; Holden's brilliant, hardened performance won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Holden was Hollywood's #1 box-office attraction, starring in David Lean's epic masterpiece "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), "Picnic" (1955), "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" (1955), and Sam Peckinpah's revolutionary Western "The Wild Bunch" (1969). Later in life, he earned another Oscar nomination as the principled television executive Max Schumacher in Sidney Lumet's prophetic media satire "Network" (1976). Beyond Hollywood, Holden fell deeply in love with East Africa, co-founding the Mount Kenya Safari Club and establishing the Mount Kenya Game Ranch, dedicating substantial personal wealth to wildlife conservation and species breeding. Passing away on November 12, 1981, his legacy was perpetuated through the William Holden Wildlife Foundation.