He started at ABC in 1968, and also enjoyed success on PBS, USA, and CNBC.\r \rHis most recent television successes were the September 2014 PBS special, Dick Cavetts Watergate, followed April 2015 by Dick Cavetts Vietnam. Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing? His two recent books -- Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets (2010) and Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic moments, and Assorted Hijinks(October 2014) are both collections of his online opinion column, written for The New York Times since 2007. He was involved in saving endangered animals in Africa and was a CIA informant. However, it was a loan-out to Columbia that secured him his breakthrough role. During his days as a student at South Pasadena High, he also became adept at team sports (football and baseball), learned to ride and shoot and to be proficient on piano, clarinet and drums.To his father's chagrin, Bill had no inclination of following in dad's footsteps, though he did major in chemistry at Pasadena Junior College. A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE: THE LAST DAYS OF WILLIAM HOLDEN - Blogger AmoMama creates engaging, meaningful content for women. Billy Wilder proclaimed William Holden to be "the ideal motion picture actor". Pretty weird, Holden said. And the voice said, "There he is, folks, I told you he'd come out sooner or later.". We only had like eight hours or like a couple hours to just get it back into our bodies and do it for a film. He started at ABC in 1968, and also enjoyed success on PBS, USA, and CNBC.\r \rHis most recent television successes were the September 2014 PBS special, Dick Cavetts Watergate, followed April 2015 by Dick Cavetts Vietnam. William Holden 1957 18,433 views Dec 30, 2008 82 Dislike Share Save chatham43 8.28K subscribers William Holden interviewed. Yes, I tend to get up before the sun. William Holden Dead at 63; Won Oscar for 'Stalag 17' William Holden - IMDb It's old school, but I love the feel of the book, and manually turning the pages. American actor William Holden circa 1965.| Getty Images. FRANCE 24 English. You got a lot of criticism, I said, for appearing in "The Wild Bunch," which everyone said glorified violence. Both his daughter and girlfriend recall his bad drinking habit with Gaines thinking back to her childhood saying: His standard breakfast before leaving for the studio in the morning was a glass of vodka mixed with orange juice.. Several alternatives were bandied around -- including Randolph Carey and Taylor Randolph - until the head of Paramount's publicity department settled on the name Holden (based on a personal friend who was an associate editor at the L.A. Times, also named Bill).Having joined Paramount's Golden Circle Club of promising young actors, Bill was now groomed for stardom. So I don't really have time to go in the wings and look at what's happening. I'm currently working on the sequel to my novella "Clothed in Flesh." perches on her shoulder for some of our interview . Inside William Holden's Frightening Final Moments - Facts Verse