Few Hollywood actors have conveyed spiritual and physical pain with the charismatic authority of William Holden. This scion of a wealthy family in the chemical business first registered in films as a clean-cut, affably handsome lead in the 1940s and he matured into more rough and tumble roles. Along the way his earnest qualities yielded to cynicism, perhaps most notably for writer-director Billy Wilder in "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) and in his Oscar-winning performance in "Stalag 17" (1953). Over the years, the rigors of life and drink re-sculpted his features into an expressive leather that
