LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Earl Holliman
built 360 days ago
Louisiana-born actor Earl Holliman, after a stint in the Navy, studied at UCLA and the Pasadena Playhouse before earning his break in the Martin/Lewis comedy Scared Stiff (1953). He gained clout after portraying a variety of firm young studs in rugged westerns and war drama, ranging from dim and/or good-natured to overly impulsive and/or threatening. He won a Golden Globe for his support performance as a girl-crazy brother in The Rainmaker (1956), holding his own against stars Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn. He distinguished himself in a number of "A" grade films around the same time, including Broken Lance (1954) with Spencer Tracy, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), again with Lancaster, Giant (1956) with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, Visit to a Small Planet (1960), again with Jerry Lewis, Summer and Smoke (1961) with Geraldine Page and The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) with John Wayne.
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While many of Earl Holliman's bucolic screen characters tended to shy away from "book learnin," Holliman himself is a graduate of UCLA. Making his film debut with a one-line bit as a bellboy in "Martin" and "Lewis"' "Scared Stiff" (1953), Holliman went on to featured and co-starring roles in westerns and military dramas, usually cast as a hot-headed rustic with a streak of manic unpredictability. His larger film roles include the comic-relief cook in "Forbidden Planet" (1956), "Katharine Hepburn"'s girl-happy brother in "The Rainmaker" (1956)--a performance that earned him a Golden Globe nomination--and Matt Elder in the "John Wayne" starrer "Sons of Katie Elder" (1965). A nearly inescapable presence on television, Holliman turned in some impressive work on the many live TV anthologies of the 1950s. His portrayal of a shipwrecked marine in the 1958 "Kraft Theatre" production "The Sea is Boiling Hot,"...
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Earl Holliman and Andrew Prine were in their heyday in the early 60s when this series was showing. The plot was simple: a professional rodeo cowboy, Holliman, was shepherding his kid brother, Prine, while having various kinds of adventures along the way. The life of a rodeo cowboy was very peripatetic, as it still is, because they basically work the circuit of big shows, many of which are in large urban centers. This aspect of this career line made for a good plot line of human interest stories of the somewhat overprotective brother who keeps trying to convince his younger sibling of the value of doing something other than being a rodeo cowboy. Holliman, with his square-jawed rugged good looks, was a good counterpart to the somewhat dreamy idealistic Prine, often cast with an interesting guest actor like Slim Pickens or John Dehner. Too bad they can't write stories now like they did back then as this unremarkable little series was quite entertaining.
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Earl Holliman, 77, played Sergeant Bill Crowley opposite Angie Dickinson's Pepper Anderson on Police Woman, the popular NBC television series that ran from 1974 through 1978. In 2003, Box Office Mojo interviewed the actor, who ... appeared in Hollywood classics Giant, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and The Rainmaker, in anticipation of the show's DVD premiere.
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By the late 50s, Holliman was locked into being a supporting player in feature films, so he turned to TV for leading roles. He broke into the medium on a 1957 episode of "Playhouse 90" entitled "The Dark Side of the Earth", written by Rod Serling and ... starring Kim Hunter and Van Heflin. Serling remembered Holliman, and when he was doing the pilot of "Twilight Zone" in 1959, cast him in the one-man tour de force "Where Is Everybody?". By then, Holliman also had a recording contract with Capitol Records, a result of his singing on an episode of "Kraft Television Theatre" in 1958. On another 1958 episode of "Kraft Television Theatre", Holliman was memorable playing opposite Sessue Hayakawa in "The Sea Is Boiling Hot". In the live drama, Holliman spoke only English, Hayakawa only Japanese. Holliman made his regular series debut as the star of "Hotel De Paree" (CBS, 1959-60), as a man who served 17 years for killing another man, then returns to town to work for the relatives of the man he murdered. Holliman's second series, "The Wide Country" (NBC, 1962-63), found him again in the West, this time as a bronco buster.
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While many of Earl Holliman's bucolic screen characters tended to shy away from "book learnin," Holliman himself is a graduate of UCLA. Making his film debut with a one-line bit as a bellboy in Martin and Lewis' Scared Stiff (1953), Holliman went on to featured and co-starring roles in westerns...Read More
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