HOLDEN, WILLIAM

HOLDEN, William: translation

(1918–1981)

Born William Franklin Beedle Jr., William Holden early on played the stereotypical good-looking cowboy hero types, several times with Glenn Ford, but in his later and better films he played mature, worldly-wise, and ambivalent roles. In Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch(1969), for example, his Pike Bishop character is the main protagonist, yet he is ruthless, lawless, and cruel. His first Western was Arizona (1940), with Jean Arthur as his love interest. But his best Westerns were ensemble films where he was the leader of a group of men with some objective, films such as The Horse Soldiers (1959), The Wild Bunch, Wild Rovers(1971), and The Revengers(1972). William Holden was nominated three times for best actor and won the award once.