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)!
Toward the Unknown (1956) was the only movie made by his production company, "Toluca Productions".
A hygiene fanatic, he reportedly showered up to four times daily.
A Japanophile, someone preoccupied with Japanese culture, he befriended actor Toshirô Mifune on a visit to Japan in 1954. After seeing the film Mifune was working on at that time, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954/I), Holden offered to distribute the film in America. The producers agreed to let Holden record a narration to explain the film when it was released in America. This addition led American critics to wrongly think that Holden had recut the film for American distribution.
Adopted his stepdaughter, Virginia Holden (Virginia Gaines), from Ardis Ankerson's (Brenda Marshall's) first marriage. He and Marshall had two sons together, Peter Westfield "West" Holden, born November 17, 1943, and Scott Holden (Scott Porter Holden, born May 2, 1946.
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.
Although married to Brenda Marshall for over 30 years, they were actually separated for most of their marriage. At the time of his death, he was the companion of Stefanie Powers.
Ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 391-397. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#57). [1995]
Considered himself to be a moderate Republican, although he was never involved in any political campaigns and never endorsed a candidate. In 1947 he joined the Committee for the First Amendment to oppose blacklisting in Hollywood, and was later very upset by the blacklisting of his close friends Dalton Trumbo and Larry Parks.
Died one day before his eldest son Peter's 38th birthday.
Family: Mother: Mary Beedle (nee Ball). Father: William Franklin Beedle, born 1892. Brother: Robert Westfield Beedle, born 1921; died January 1, 1944. Brother: Richard P. Beedle, born 1925.
Father of Scott Holden, Arlene Holden and Peter Holden.
Felt he didn't deserve the Academy Award for Best Actor for Stalag 17 (1953), and that the award should have gone to Burt Lancaster for From Here to Eternity (1953). His wife also felt that the honor was just a belated apology for snubbing his nomination for Sunset Blvd. (1950).
For The Horse Soldiers (1959) both Holden and John Wayne received $775,000, plus twenty per cent of the overall profits, an unheard-of sum for that time. The final contract, heralded as marking the beginning of mega-deals for Hollywood stars, involved six companies and numbered twice the pages of the movie's script. The film, however, was a critical and commercial failure, with no profits to be shared in the end.
He appeared among the top ten box office stars six times, as ranked by Quigley Publications' annual poll of movie exhibitors, The Top Ten Money-Making Stars, the definitive list of movie stars' pull at the box office. He actually topped the list in 1956, two years after entering it at #7 in 1954, the year he won the Best Actor Oscar with his performance in Stalag 17 (1953). In 1955, he was ranked #4, then hit #1 for the first and only time in 1956, and then dropped to #7 in 1957 before rebounding slightly to #6 in 1958. After five straight years in the Top 10, he dropped off the list in 1959 and 1960, but reappeared in the Top Ten in 1961, ranked in eighth place. His 1961 appearance among the Top Ten Box Office stars was his last.
He enjoyed firework displays.
He had a daughter, Arlene, in 1937 with actress Eva May Hoffman. Arlene was raised by her mother and her stepfather, composer Emil Newman.
He suffered a laceration to his forehead and bled to death, after he slipped on a throw rug and hit his head on a table. Claims that he was intoxicated at the time are disputed.