Earl Holliman, a Louisiana native born in 1928, has always wanted to be a movie star.
When he was just 14 years old, he worked at Shreveport’s Strand Theater, leading moviegoers through the aisles to their seats for 25 cents an hour.
The future star “saved a few bucks,” and when he was 15, he “hitchhiked to Hollywood.”
“I brought along a pair of dark sunglasses, which I associated with Hollywood, and, on my first day in Hollywood I went to Grauman’s Chinese Theater and I remember walking up and down the forecourt of Grauman’s [where movie stars put their handprints and footprints] in my dark glasses hoping everyone would wonder who I was,” Holliman, 95, recounted in a previous interview. “I did not last long. I expected to be able to acquire a job, but I couldn’t.”
Feeling defeated, the young guy went home and finished high school. After graduation, he joined the navy, which placed him at a radio communications school in Los Angeles.
But Hollywood was unkind to the ambitious man, who often heard during auditions: “You just don’t look the part.”
“I was informed that, even though I was a fine actor, I wasn’t beautiful enough to be a leading man or eccentric enough to be a character actor. “I was kind of in the middle,” he recounted.
Holliman chose to obtain a makeover in order to achieve popularity and get a role in the 1953 film The Girls of Pleasure Island.
Over the next several years, Holliman, who also had a successful singing career, featured onscreen with Hollywood icons such as John Wayne, Dean Martin, Kirk Douglas, and Rock Hudson.
From 1974 until 1978, the star of the TV series Wide Country portrayed Sergeant Bill Crowley in Police Woman, a show co-starring Angie Dickinson.
Speaking on his chemistry with his co-star, who is now 92 years old, the Giant star adds, “She was very sexy, but there was something about her that you wanted to protect, a little girl quality, that made you want to put your arm around her and say it was going to be [okay].” Holliman goes on, “We were together 12 or 14 hours a day, and Angie’s extremely opinionated; when she believes she’s right, that’s how it is, and we had our share of arguments, but you could see we had a connection. It appeared like two persons admired one other. It was there.
Animal advocacy
Since leaving the screen, he has concentrated on his work as an animal rights advocate.
The former celebrity, who has treated a blind possum, injured doves, and battered cats, does not discriminate.
He also likes pigeons.
“I feed at least 500 of them each day. In fact, it’s like a pigeon McDonald’s on my land,” he explains.
Holliman was president of Actors and Other Animals for 25 years, and the group was backed by many celebrities, including the late Betty White, Lily Tomlin, Valerie Bertinelli, and Wendie Malick.
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