‘Great white hunter’ William Holden turned wildlife activist

DESPITE more than 50 movies, Hollywood box-office hero William Holden’s hottest action scenes never made it onto film.

William Holden (second right) with actors Ben Johnson, Warren Oates and Ernest Borgnine in a scene from 1969 film, The Wild Bunch.

DESPITE more than 50 movies, Hollywood box-office hero William Holden’s hottest action scenes never made it onto film.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Wild Bunch and Towering Inferno aside, Holden’s wildest times were hunting and lassoing wildlife in Africa.

Admitting that on his first African venture, a hunting safari in Kenya in 1958, “I planned to be the great white hunter with a Nikon camera”, in 1962 Holden renounced his past as a hunter to set up a 510ha wildlife reserve.

While hunting, Holden admitted he once feared for his life when a female rhinoceros, protecting her calf, hooked horns under the safari Land Rover, knocking it about two metres.

As a conservationist, he chased across the reserve at 120km/h in pursuit of Cape buffalo, giraffes and zebras, slowing to 50km/h as he lassoed them from a Jeep.

Holden was born William Franklin Beedle a century ago, on April 17, 1918, in O’Fallon, Illinois, to an industrial chemist and his schoolteacher wife.

Actor William Holden in 1959.

He had two younger brothers, Robert and Richard; Robert became a US Navy fighter pilot and was killed in action in World War II, over New Ireland, a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific, in 1944.

In 1921 his family moved to South Pasadena, where Holden graduated from South Pasadena High School then attended Pasadena Junior College, where he became involved in local radio plays.

His first stage appearance was at the Playhouse Theater, where a talent scout was impressed by his performance in the role of Madame Curie’s grandfather and persuaded Paramount to give him a small part in Million Dollar Legs in 1939.

His next role, in Golden Boy, released in September 1939, made him a star, although unimpressed executives at Columbia Pictures almost dismissed him during filming.

Actors Gloria Swanson and William Holden in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard.

William Holden and Audrey Hepburn in a scene from Sabrina.

Director Billy Wilder (right) with actors William Holden and Audrey Hepburn watching rushes of film Sabrina in 1954.

Playing a violinist-turned-boxer, his co-star Barbara Stanwyck went out of her way to help him, spending time coaching and encouraging him, then fighting for him to remain on set.

At the time it was reported he had obtained the stage name Holden from assistant director and scout, Harold Winston, on the Columbia lot. Winston had recently divorced actor Gloria Holden, but remained enamoured, so named Hollywood’s new Holden in honour of his former spouse.

Holden married actor Brenda Marshall in 1941, and eight months later enlisted in the Army Air Forces, serving more than three years when he acted in training films. Holden legally changed his name in 1943, although he did not have any film roles for 17 months after his military discharge.

The Oscar-winning actor in a scene from the film Bridge over the River Kwai in 1959.

William Holden and Nancy Kwan in 1960 film The World of Suzie Wong.

He then appeared in 13 movies in three years, including The Dark Side and Sunset Boulevard.

In March 1952 Holden was best man and his wife a witness at the wedding of actors Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis in North Hollywood, and the next year he won an Academy Award for his role in prisoner of war drama Stalag 17.

He appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina in 1954, then director David Lean insisted that Holden play American prisoner Major Shears in his first epic, The Bridge Over The River Kwai, although producer Sam Spiegel wanted Cary Grant. Holden earned $300,000 (about $2.5 million) plus 10 per cent of the gross, twice the sum paid for Lean’s direction, although Lean insisted Holden was worth it.

Holden began to travel extensively in Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and East Africa in the 1950s, making his first Kenyan safari with oil tycoon Ray Ryan and Swiss banker Carl Hirschmann.

Already cynical about Hollywood pretence, Holden was fascinated by Kenya and joined Ryan and Hirschmann to buy the 50-room Mawingo Hotel, set on 96 acres on the slopes of Mount Kenya, 200km from Nairobi.

Mount Kenya Safari Club in Nanyuki, was founded by Hollywood actor William Holden in 1959. The revamped resort retains much of the colonial flavour. Picture: Fairmont Resorts

Although popular, the hotel was not a commercial success, and Holden persevered with his Hollywood career partly to finance his African interests, donating part of the proceeds from his next film, The World Of Suzie Wong, to help finance a school in Kenya.

Although an apparent symbol of normality in Hollywood, as a nice guy with a long marriage to one woman and father to two sons, Peter and Scott, Holden had become a heavy drinker. He and Marshall divorced in 1971.

Holden met Hart To Hart actor Stefanie Powers in 1972 and continued a relationship until his death in 1981.

Powers said she was driving when she heard on the car radio that Holden, 63, had been found dead in his apartment after tripping over and gashing his head.

The building manager of the Shorecliff Towers, an apartment building Holden partly owned on Ocean Ave in Santa Monica, had found Holden’s body after not seeing him for several days. Police believed the actor had been dead for four days before he was found.