Cinema: For His Dotage

Actor-Businessman William Holden, who handcuffed Columbia Pictures to what seemed a historically profitable contract for his part in The Bridge on the River Kwai, last week felt the contract's manacles snapping around his own wrists. Signing on for 10% of the gross, Holden, to keep taxes down, forced Columbia to add a clause providing payment in sums not exceeding $50,000 a year. So far, so shrewd—but Kwai has already grossed $8,500,000, is expected to end up with at least $25 million; 40-year-old Bill Holden will not be fully paid until he is 90. Columbia can earn $90,000 a year by investing...