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Saturday, June 11, 2022

Bill


William Holden was a very good actor who topped the Hollywood leading man lists through much of the 1950s into the 60s.  They made him shave his chest for Picnic, saying that his fur made him look too old to be the love interest of Kim Novak who played a 18 year old small town beauty queen.



 

6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Yes, he was, but he had issues with alcohol that eventually helped kill him.

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  2. Wow, what a magnificent matt of body hair. Bet the poor guy was itchier than the devil when it grew back in.

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  3. The Hays Code considered chest and underarm hair in men morally corrupt. Holden's hair was shaved in "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" (opposite of Jennifer Jones who was one year younger) and, two months later, he kept it smooth for "Picnic". It must have worked wonders at the box office because those two 1955 movies made him the #1 box office star of 1956. In 1957, Bill surprisingly shaved his chest for the ultra macho "The Bridge Over the River Kwai", the biggest money maker of his career.

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    Replies
    1. All true. That element of the Code was inconsistently enforced and eventually dropped even before things blew wide open in the late 60s.

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