30 Years Ago in Hollywood History: Lousy Fade Out

On Nov 16,1981 actor William Holden's body was found in a Santa Monica apartment building. He apparently had been having one of his bouts with the bottle, tripped on a throw rug, and hit his forehead on the corner of a nightstand. It is estimated that he was conscious for about half an hour, blotting the blood with towels, before he passed out and bled to death. His body was discovered several days later.

Holden was on my radar screen in 1981 mainly because he had just appeared in Blake Edwards' S.O.B, a satire on Hollywood. I saw it at least 3 times when it was released in the summer of '81. I was taken with the whole film: it's manic swings from humor to tragedy, Hollywood double-crosses, orgies, drug intake, quack doctors, cunning agents, ego driven actors, etc. All done with a master's finesse, which Edwards surely was. But in the swirl of all this hedonistic activity was Holden's seen-it-all-but-still-come-through-it-with-humanity-intact veteran movie director, Culley. He is a island of calm and integrity in a town that has little or no use for either. So when I read that Holden had been found dead and alone in his apartment I was fascinated.

I, of course, had heard all about decadent Hollywood. I had read Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger's incredible telling of legends doing bad things with drink, drugs, or each other, and David Niven's Bring on the Empty Horses, his sometimes factual, sometimes fanciful telling of celebs from the "Golden Age" of tinseltown. I knew of Marilyn Monroe's death, Fatty Arbuckle's rape of a young woman at a San Fransisco party (apparently false), and so on and so on. But Holden's death caught me short. This was "Golden Boy." An Oscar winner from the 50's, one of the town's most reliable stalwarts, an Eisenhower Republican, Mr Nice Guy. Dead from being too drunk to know better. Illusion and reality really met head on here. What Holden was perceived to be and what he was, were two different things.

According to all Bob Thomas' bio Golden Boy, Holden played around on his beautiful wife to whom he was married for 30 years, for the last 10 at least they didn't even live together. He allegedly had affairs with Shelley Winters, Grace Kelly, Capucine, and Audrey Hepburn. It was Hepburn whom he wanted to marry according to Thomas' bio. But he and his wife didn't wants any more children (they had two sons), so he had a vasectomy. Audrey, being quite young at the time, wanted a family. The affair wound down after they made Sabrina in 1954.

Making a living as an actor and being an introvert, Holden drank to relax, to loosen up in front of the cameras. Holden would carouse with the hard drinking RKO/Paramount crowd: John Wayne, Bob Mitchum, Glenn Ford, Broderick Crawford. Boozing with buddies instead of playing house with the wife and kids. Eventually drink started to control his life and affect his work. Hangovers on set, listless performances, a wife who, when he won his Oscar for Stalag 17 said "Bill, you know you didn't win for this, you won because they didn't give it to you for Sunset Blvd." Nice soul-mate. So Holden drank to keep the demons at bay. Yet those very demons he tried so hard to lose ended up killing him.

I always liked Holden, had seen him in Sunset Blvd (to me his best performance), Network, Sabrina, Bridge on the River Kwai, Picnic, and others. He always seemed in control of any situation and rock steady. Little did I know a drink was needed to steady that hand and put confidence and conviction in that voice. He was a man who did not age gracefully. Pain and regret were etched into that face. No plastic surgery for him. I think he was proud of every line. Every wrinkle told a story. I still like William Holden. Maybe more after his death. And maybe for the way he died, tragic though it was. I now see his movies with a different perspective on the man and what may have been going on inside him. It helps explain how he could understand and bring humanity to roles like Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd, a user and taker who gets took and used back. I like Bill Holden, because of the weakness he tried to hide. As Billy Wilder said on hearing of his friend and collaborators death, "What a lousy fade out for a great guy."