From his discovery in the late 1930s actor William Holden rose to be one of the most dependable and most likeable leading men of 1950s Hollywood, appearing to personify the mild-mannered charm of the Eisenhower era while, at his best, suggesting that the period's integrity and feeling went deeper than its relatively bland, conformist tendencies sometimes suggested. During more than forty years Holden had seventy roles where, for the most part, he met his fate with varying mixtures of wryness, cynicism, and good humor that was always believable and often attractive, but particularly successful in the mid-1950s.

Holden revealed a homely and good-natured appeal in a number of features including Golden Boy (1939) and Our Town (1940) before joining the wartime air force. On his return, following a number of forgettable Westerns, he got an important break in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950) as a late...