William Franklin Holden (né Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s.

Holden starred in some of Hollywood's most popular and critically acclaimed films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sabrina (1954), Picnic (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Wild Bunch (1969) and Network (1976).

[8] Columbia put Holden in a Western with Jean Arthur, Arizona (1940), then at Paramount he was in a hugely popular war film, I Wanted Wings (1941) with Ray Milland and Veronica Lake.

He did another Western at Columbia, Texas (1941) with Glenn Ford, and a musical comedy at Paramount, The Fleet's In (1942) with Eddie Bracken, Dorothy Lamour, and Betty Hutton.

Holden's first film back from the services was Blaze of Noon (1947), an aviator picture at Paramount directed by John Farrow.

Holden's career took off again in 1950 when Billy Wilder tapped him to play a down-at-heel screenwriter taken in by a faded silent film actress (Gloria Swanson) in Sunset Boulevard.

Holden had another good break when he was cast as Judy Holliday's love interest in the big-screen adaptation of the Broadway hit Born Yesterday (1950).

[4] He made a sex comedy with David Niven for Otto Preminger, The Moon Is Blue (1953), which was a huge hit, in part due to controversy over its content.

[16] Holden and Hepburn became romantically involved during the filming, unbeknownst to Wilder: "People on the set told me later that Bill and Audrey were having an affair, and everybody knew.

Bogart was not especially friendly toward Hepburn, who had little Hollywood experience, while Holden's reaction was the opposite, wrote biographer Michelangelo Capua.

)[20] He took third billing for The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, directed by George Seaton from a play by Clifford Odets.

[23] The golden run at the box office continued with Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), from a bestselling novel, with Jennifer Jones, and Picnic (1955), as a drifter, in an adaptation of the William Inge play with Kim Novak.

Holden had his most widely recognized role as "Commander" Shears in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) with Alec Guinness,[26] a huge commercial success.

[30] Columbia would not meet Holden's asking price of $750,000 and 10% of the gross for The Guns of Navarone (1961); the amount he wanted exceeded the combined salaries of stars Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn.

Holden's films continued to struggle at the box office: Paris When It Sizzles (1964) with Hepburn was shot in 1962 but given a much delayed release; The 7th Dawn (1964) with Capucine and Susannah York, a romantic adventure set during the Malayan Emergency produced by Charles K. Feldman; Alvarez Kelly (1966), a Western; and The Devil's Brigade (1968).

In 1969, Holden made a comeback when he starred in director Sam Peckinpah's graphically violent Western The Wild Bunch,[4] 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.

For television roles in 1974, Holden 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 bestselling Joseph Wambaugh novel of the same name.

[33][4] In 1973, Holden starred with Kay Lenz in a movie directed by Clint Eastwood called Breezy, which was considered a box-office flop.

Two years later, he was praised for his Oscar-nominated leading performance in Sidney Lumet's classic Network (1976),[36] 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.

He followed it with Damien - Omen II (1978) and had a cameo in Escape to Athena (1978), which co-starred his real-life love interest Stefanie Powers.

[37] Holden starred in The Earthling,[38] as a loner dying of cancer at the Australian outback and accompanying an orphan boy (Ricky Schroder).

[40] Holden maintained a home in Switzerland and also spent much of his time working for wildlife conservation as a managing partner in an animal preserve in Africa.

[41] On a trip to Africa, he fell in love with the wildlife and became increasingly concerned with the animal species that were beginning to decrease in population.

With the help of his partners, he created the Mount Kenya Game Ranch and inspired the creation of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation.

[48] According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's autopsy report, Holden bled to death in his apartment in Santa Monica, California, on November 12, 1981, after lacerating his forehead by slipping on a rug while intoxicated and hitting a bedside table.

[52] His death was noted by singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, whose 1987 song "Tom's Diner" evokes a sequence of events one morning in 1981.