(5 of 8)
Such adventures came but seldom. Bill was not the boy to notice that the apron strings of Pasadena propriety were holding him as fast as a straitjacket. All went well enough until Bill was in his teens, when suddenly he was overcome by an urge to experience danger. Soon he was making a good part of his spending money from boys who bet him he couldn't jump a 4½-ft. fence of iron spikes from a standing position, and every once in a while, "just for the hell of it," he would walk along the outer rail of Pasadena's "suicide bridge" on his hands, apparently indifferent to the 190-ft. drop that awaited the least slip. He longed to be a member of Victor McLaglen's motorcycle corps of trick riders, and when he was 16 his father got him a secondhand cycle. For the next few years Bill rode blissfully about the streets of Pasadena, standing on the seat.
In a more constructive direction, Bill also had half a hanker to be a musician, and in his spare time picked up a fair proficiency on two instruments—clarinet and piano—and a real professional sheen on two others—drums and bones. At almost everything his timing and coordination were exceptional—though, curiously he could never learn to dance very well—and they showed to brilliant effect whenever he was on a stage. In the sixth grade he played Rip Van Winkle in the school play, and made a hit with all the mothers. He decided he might like to be an actor, if only fate would preserve him from the fertilizer business.
All There. Fate went to considerable trouble to do just that. When Bill was 20 and a second-year student at Pasadena Junior College, he got a chance at the part of Madame Curie's father in a play at the Pasadena Playbox. On opening night a Paramount talent scout, Milt Lewis, went to see the play. He couldn't see Bill for the whiskers, but he liked Bill's voice, and went backstage to see what the rest of him was like. Says Milt: "It was all there." He invited Bill to Paramount next day for an interview. "Sorry," the young man said, coolly. "I've got to take an exam." Milt was so flabbergasted that he stood still for an appointment later in the week.
Two weeks later Bill had a movie contract ($50 a week) but what about a name? "Beedle!" exclaimed a Paramount executive. "It sounds like an insect." Just then his secretary announced that William Holden, a West Coast newsman, was on the wire. That took care of the name, now all Bill needed was a part. Fate got busy again. Over at Columbia, Director Rouben Mamoulian saw Bill's screen test, grabbed him for the title role of Golden Boy, the Clifford Odets play about a young pug who could hit like Marciano and fiddle like Paganini.