Morning Man Classic: William Holden!

When I was a kid, I only knew William Holden from the classic episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy encounters the movie star at The Brown Derby and he ends up with a tray of desserts all over him. Later, her putty nose catches on fire as the two are having coffee!

But that’s just a footnote to one of the most successful careers in Hollywood history.

The handsome Holden got his big break as the star of 1939’s Golden Boy opposite life-long friend Barbara Stanwyck. A stint in the US Air Force during WWII slowed him career momentum but he was back on track by 1950 starring opposite Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard which earned him his first Oscar nomination for best actor.

Holden won the Oscar in 1953 for Stalag 17 and also starred in such classics as The Country Girl, Picnic, Sabrina, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Born Yesterday.

Later roles included The Towering Inferno, The Wild Bunch, The Earthling, S.O.B. and an Oscar-nominated performance in Network. He won an Emmy Award in 1974 for his performance in the television film The Blue Knight.

He died too young. Holden was just 63 when he slipped while intoxicated and hit his head on a night table in his Santa Monica apartment and bled to death.