Earl Holliman, an iron-jawed actor who earned a star on Hollywood Boulevard for a prolific career that included a corral full of Westerns, an appearance on the first episode of “The Twilight Zone” and a turn as Angie Dickinson’s boss on the 1970s television drama “Police Woman,” died on Monday at his home in Studio City, Calif. He was 96.
His death was confirmed by his husband, Craig Curtis, who is his only survivor.
While never a household name, Mr. Holliman was a seemingly ubiquitous presence on both the big and small screen, collecting nearly 100 credits over a career that spanned almost five decades.
Ruggedly handsome, he was a natural choice for Westerns, war movies and police procedurals. Among his many notable films were “The Bridges at Toko-Ri” (1954), starring William Holden and Grace Kelly; “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957), starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas; “The Sons of Katie Elder” (1965), with John Wayne and Dean Martin; and “Sharky’s Machine,” the 1981 Burt Reynolds detective thriller.
Over the years, he also popped up in many television series, including “Gunsmoke,” “CHiPs” and “Murder, She Wrote.”
Mr. Holliman’s career started with promise. He broke through in the Depression-era romance “The Rainmaker” (1956), winning a Golden Globe for best supporting actor for playing the impulsive teenage brother of a lovelorn woman (Katharine Hepburn) who encounters a grifter (Mr. Lancaster) promising rain in drought-ravaged Kansas.
A relative unknown, Mr. Holliman managed to win the role over Elvis Presley, who was then rocketing to fame as a rock ’n’ roll trailblazer, but who took time out to read for the role. (Mr. Holliman apparently had little to worry about: “Elvis played the rebellious younger brother with amateurish conviction — like the lead in a high school play,” Allan Weiss, a screenwriter who saw the audition, recalled.)
That year turned out to be a busy one for Mr. Holliman, who also appeared in the pioneering science-fiction film “Forbidden Planet,” which Gene Roddenberry once cited as an inspiration for “Star Trek.” Mr. Holliman provided comic relief as the spacecraft’s chef, who was thrilled to discover that his mechanical crew mate Robby the Robot was capable of producing a huge supply of whiskey.
That same year he appeared in George Stevens’s sprawling Texas epic “Giant,” starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean in his final film role.
Despite a promising trajectory, Mr. Holliman was open about not burning for stardom the way many in Hollywood did.
“Money is getting important to me,” he said in a 1967 interview with The Los Angeles Times, for an article headlined “He’d Rather Be an Actor Than a Star.” “The trouble is, I can’t handle success.”
After starring in the Western series “Hotel de Paree,” which ran for a season starting in 1959, he told the newspaper he received four movie offers and a recording contract from Capitol Records.
“So what did I do?” he said. “I went to Europe instead, bummed around for a whole year.”
Henry Earl Holliman was born on Sept. 11, 1928, near Delhi, in northern Louisiana. His father died before he was born, and because his mother had nine other children to care for, she placed him for adoption. He was raised by Henry Holliman, an oil worker, and Velma (Cornwell) Holliman, a waitress.
“I’ve wanted to be an actor since I was 5 or 6,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “I think it was because I wanted to be loved.”
At 15, with World War II raging, he lied about his age and joined the Navy, training in naval communications in Long Beach, Calif. In his off-hours, he mingled with movie stars at the Hollywood Canteen, a popular club for war-bound servicemen that inspired a 1944 film starring Bette Davis.
When the Navy discovered his real age, he was discharged and went back to Louisiana to finish high school. Once he came of age, he did another stint in the Navy before heading to California, where he honed his acting skills by performing at the renowned Pasadena Playhouse.
Signed as a contract player at Paramount Pictures by the producer Hal B. Wallis, of “Casablanca” fame, Mr. Holliman landed his first speaking role, in “Scared Stiff,” a 1953 comedy starring Jerry Lewis and Mr. Martin.
“I remember it well,” he joked in an appearance on the 1970s show “The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast,” ribbing the host about his famously prodigious drinking habits. “I was scared, and he was stiff.”
In 1959, he entered television lore, starring as an amnesiac Air Force man wandering through a seemingly deserted world in “Where is Everybody?,” the inaugural episode of Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone.”
But Mr. Holliman is perhaps best known for his role on the TV show “Police Woman.” He played Lt. Bill Crowley, the superior of Ms. Dickinson’s Sgt. Pepper Anderson, for four seasons, starting in 1974. Although the role earned him newspaper profiles and an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, he was still more journeyman than star.
“Mystery Science Theater 3000,” the 1990s comedy series about a bored space traveler and his robot companions mocking B movies, lampooned him as “the poor man’s Martin Milner” — a reference to the well-traveled actor who finally landed on the police series “Adam-12.”
Still, Mr. Holliman expressed no regrets. As he told The Los Angeles Times, he considered himself lucky, given his lack of drive and distaste for the business side of Hollywood.
“I love the lackadaisical way, the marvelous luxury of doing pictures,” he said. “You get the ‘A’ treatment. Every time I finish a TV series I swear I’ll never do another, but I get less adamant as the bank account gets lower.”
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