William Holden Net Worth

William Holden's Quotes

• For me, acting is not an all-consuming thing, except for the moment when I am actually doing it.
• Take any picture you can. One out of four will be good, one out of ten will be very good, and one out of 15 will get you an Academy Award.
• Movie acting may not have a certain kind of glory as true art, but it is damn hard work.
• I don't really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life - to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.
• I'm a whore, all actors are whores. We sell our bodies to the highest bidder.

Interesting Facts about William Holden

1. Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#57). [1995]
2. Holden was the best man at the 1952 wedding of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan.
3. Not to be confused with the character actor William Holden (1862-1932).
4. Brian Donlevy was his best man when Holden married Brenda Marshall in 1941. A Congregationalist Church service was planned in Las Vegas. Since William and Brian were still filming The Remarkable Andrew (1942), there were delays and it was 3am before they arrived for the ceremony. By that time the minister had long gone to bed. It was 4pm Sunday before another preacher could be found to perform the wedding. After they were married, they had a champagne breakfast and hopped a plane back to Los Angeles so he and Brian could wrap up shooting, and Brenda was off to Canada to film some location footage that she was still working on. It would be three more months before they would have a real honeymoon (one mishap after another postponed it ... including the TWO of them having to undergo emergency appendectomies)!
5. He was very instrumental in animal preservation in Africa. In the 1970s he purchased a large acreage of land with his own money and began an animal sanctuary. His love of the wild animal was shared with his then companion Stefanie Powers (from Hart to Hart (1979)). He would appear on talk shows to promote the saving of animals and to spread the word of anti-poaching and illegal animal trade.
6. A hygiene fanatic, he reportedly showered up to four times daily.
7. The eldest of three sons born to Mary Ball (1898-1990) and William Franklin Beedle (1891-1967). He had two brothers, Robert Westfield Beedle (1921-1945) and Richard P. Beedle (1924-1964). The family was of English, Irish, and distant French, ancestry. Mary outlived all three of her sons.
8. Immortalized in [Canadian band], Blue Rodeo's song "Floating" with the lyric: "I need love and it's you, And I feel like William Holden floating in a pool" - Greg Keelor, the writer of the song, said this: "That sort of quiet desperation at the end of a relationship when nothing's really making sense and I sort of had the image of William Holden at the beginning of Sunset Blvd. (1950) in my head, and I'd always sort of related to that character floating in that pool. I was always hoping for the opportunity to play the gigolo for some wealthy woman. This is a song about identifying with that sort of compromised existence."
9. Although it is thought by some that J.D. Salinger got the name for his hero Holden Caulfield in "The Catcher in the Rye" when he saw a marquee for Dear Ruth (1947), starring William Holden and Joan Caulfield, Salinger's first Holden Caulfield story, "I'm Crazy," appeared in Collier's on December 22, 1945, a year and a half before this movie came out.
10. Won Best Actor for his role in Stalag 17 (1953). When accepting his statue at the Acadamy Awards, simply stated, "Thank you" and walked off.
11. Holden said that, at some point, he lost his passion for acting and that it eventually just became a job so that he could support himself.
12. He was voted the 63rd Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
13. A registered Republican, he rarely involved himself in political campaigns. In 1947, he joined the Committee for the First Amendment to oppose blacklisting in Hollywood. He was good friends with two blacklistees, Dalton Trumbo and Larry Parks.
14. Was named #25 Actor on the 50 Greatest Screen Legends by the AFI
15. Was friends with photographer Peter Beard.
16. Is portrayed by Gabriel Macht in The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000)
17. In the song "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega, the lyrics "I open up the paper / there's a story of an actor / who died while he was drinking / he was no one I had heard of" refer to Holden, whose death was indeed reported in the New York Post on November 18, 1981, when the song was written. Vega has subsequently expressed embarrassment at these lyrics.
18. Made two films with Audrey Hepburn: Sabrina (1954) and Paris When It Sizzles (1964).
19. Was an avid art collector. His private collection at his exclusive hilltop home in Palm Springs featured antique Asian art. Upon his death, the priceless collection was donated to the Palm Springs Museum of Art, where it is proudly displayed today.
20. Was involved in a serious road accident in Italy in July 1966.