William Holden

Born William Franklin Beedle on April 17, 1918, he became one of the 1950s' biggest draws after Billy Wilder cast him as the kept man in Sunset Boulevard in 1950 - a role that made his good looks feel dangerous. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor three years later in Stalag 17, playing a prisoner of war with none of the expected heroism. The mid-fifties brought Sabrina, Picnic, and The Bridge on the River Kwai, a run that landed him in the year-end top ten six times between 1954 and 1961. By 1969 he was aging into harder territory with Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, and in 1976 he delivered his last major performance in Network, the exhausted news executive letting the machine eat him. He died November 12, 1981, ranked 25th on AFI's list of Hollywood's greatest male stars.