William Holden
William Holden was an actor whose career spanned over four decades, appearing in films such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Stalag 17, The Horse Soldiers, and The Towering Inferno. During his career he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times during his career, winning the award for Stalag 17. Later in his career, he won an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Television Movie for his role in The Blue Knight.
When later President Ronald Reagan married Nancy Davis in 1952, Holden was his Best Man. During his career, Holden was linked romantically with several women, including Audrey Hepburn, with whom he co-starred in Sabrina, and later actress Stephanie Powers, in whom he sparked an interest in animal rights and wildlife conservation. Holden was a managing partner of an animal preserve in Africa, the Mount Kenya Safari Club, which he helped found in 1959.
Holden was also a noted heavy drinker throughout his career. In the early days of his success the naturally shy actor drank before going to work, and during the 1950s, the years of his greatest success as an actor, he began drinking on set, usually continuing after shooting long into the night. As his drinking increased the number of his successes began to wane, and the resulting insecurities and frustrations led to ever more drinking. The heavy consumption began to affect his looks and his availability for the types of roles that had made him famous.
Holden was a notoriously private person and had little interaction with his neighbors, so it took several days of his not being seen nor heard from before the manager of the building in which he lived investigated his absence. He was found dead on the floor of his apartment, partially robed, with bloody tissues on the floor surrounding the body and a gash on his forehead. The linen on the nearby bed was likewise bloody, and there was a large amount of blood on the floor. Several empty beer bottles and a partially empty bottle of vodka were in the apartment as well.
It was the determination of the medical examiner that Holden had tripped over a throw rug and hit his head on a nearby night table with sufficient force to drive the table into the wall and damage the plaster. Attempting to stop the bleeding he had passed out from the loss of blood, and died from exsanguination from the wound which resulted from the fall. There was a telephone within reach, leading to the theory that Holden was not aware of the seriousness of the accident. He was 63.