10 .Union Station
William Holden, Barry Fitzgerald
Released: 1950
Directed by: Rudolph Maté
9.The Wild Bunch
William Holden, Ernest Borgnine
Released: 1969
Directed by: Sam Peckinpah
8.The Man from Colorado
William Holden, Glenn Ford
Released: 1948
Directed by: Henry Levin
7. Texas
William Holden, Glenn Ford
Released: 1941
Directed by: George Marshall
6.The Earthling
William Holden, Ricky Schroder
Released: 1980
Directed by: Peter Collinson
5.Golden Boy
Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden
Released: 1939
Directed by: Rouben Mamoulian
4.Sunset Boulevard
William Holden, Buster Keaton
Released: 1950
Directed by: Billy Wilder
3.The Towering Inferno
O. J. Simpson, Paul Newman
Released: 1974
Directed by: Irwin Allen, John Guillermin
2.Sunset Boulevard
William Holden, Buster Keaton
Released: 1950
Directed by: Billy Wilder
And on the first eat of this scale
1.The Bridge on the River Kwai
Alec Guinness, William Holden
Released: 1957
Directed by: David Lean
Beedle grew up in South Pasadena, California. While attending Pasadena Junior College, he acted in local radio plays and became involved with the Pasadena Playhouse. He was discovered by a Paramount Pictures talent scout and given the more glamorous surname “Holden.” Drawing on his muscular build and good looks, the studio assigned him the lead in the boxing melodrama Golden Boy (1939). The role was a challenge for the inexperienced young actor, who was tutored by costar Barbara Stanwyck in the basics of performing before a camera.
Columbia Pictures picked up half of his contract, and Holden alternated between the two studios, appearing in several forgettable movies before serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. His service included acting in training films. After the war, he continued to perform in what he referred to as “smiling Jim” parts. In later years, Holden bitterly resented the studios’ exploitation of his physical appearance at the expense of his development as an actor.
In later years Holden appeared in few films of quality. Disillusioned with Hollywood, he spent much of his time and money supporting conservation efforts in Africa. The roles that do stand out from his later career—those of Pike Bishop in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), TV executive Max Schumacher in Network (1976; his last Oscar nomination), and hard-drinking film producer Tim Culley in Blake Edwards’s S.O.B. (1981; Holden’s final film)—captured a bit of Holden’s real-life bitterness and depression and added a tinge of melancholy to his screen image.
Holden’s death was especially unfortunate and probably quite unnecessary. Evidence suggests that after an evening of drinking, Holden slipped and fell, suffering a severe laceration to his forehead. He remained conscious for at least half an hour after the accident but did not realize the severity of his injury and did not make the phone call that would surely have saved his life. He subsequently passed out and bled to death; his body was discovered some four days later.
Parts taken over. BY MOVIES
