Earl Holliman
Police Woman (1974–1978)
Police Woman (1974–1978) 4 great seasons starring Angie Dickinson, Earl Holliman, Charles Dierkop and Ed Bernard.
Holliman in 1959
Henry Earl Holliman (born September 11, 1928) is an American actor. He is well known for his many character roles in films, mostly westerns and dramas, in the 1950’s and 1960s. He also portrayed the role of Police Sergeant Bill Crowley on the television police drama Police Woman throughout its 1974 – 1978 run.
Early life and Education
Earl Holliman was born at Delhi in the Richland Parish of northeastern Louisiana. Holliman’s biological father died six months before he was born, and his biological mother, living in poverty with several other children, gave him up for adoption at birth. He was adopted from an orphanage a week after his birth by Henry Holliman, an oil-field worker, and his wife. Earl’s early years were normal until his adoptive father died when Earl was 13.
He saved money from his job ushering at a movie theater and left Shreveport, Louisiana, hitchhiking to Hollywood. Unsuccessful at finding work, he soon returned to Louisiana. Meanwhile, his adoptive mother had remarried, and Holliman disliked his new stepfather. He lied about his age and enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. Assigned to a Navy communications school in Los Angeles, he spent his free time at the Hollywood Canteen, talking to stars who dropped by to support the servicemen and women. A year after he enlisted, the Navy discovered his real age and discharged him.
Holliman returned home and finished high school. As soon as he was old enough, he re-enlisted in the Navy and was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Interested in acting, he was cast as the lead in several Norfolk Navy Theatre productions. When he left the Navy for good, Holliman studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. He also graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Career – Film
Holliman first appeared, uncredited, in three 1953 films. His credits include: The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), The Big Combo (1955), Forbidden Planet (1956), Giant (1956), The Rainmaker (1956) (for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Last Train from Gun Hill (1959), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), and Anzio (1968).
Earl Holliman at 2006 San Diego Comic Con – Photograph by Patty Mooney
Holliman played a doomed helicopter pilot in the war drama The Bridges at Toko-Ri and a gangster’s double-crossed thug in The Big Combo. In his award-winning performance in The Rainmaker, he played a rancher’s timid son who finally must defy his father to gain self-respect, and he was the soft-spoken son-in-law of a rancher (Rock Hudson) in the epic western saga Giant.
Holliman would play many roles set in the American west. He was one of the Earp brothers, brave lawmen in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and a sniveling coward guilty of murdering and raping lawman Kirk Douglas’s wife in Last Train from Gun Hill. He played a drunken deputy sheriff whose brother Richard Widmark returns to town in The Trap and the brother of John Wayne and Dean Martin, out to avenge their murdered father, in The Sons of Katie Elder.
Television
Holliman became well known to television audiences through his role as Sundance in CBS’s Hotel de Paree, with costar Jeanette Nolan, from 1959 to 1960 and in the title role with Andrew Prine in NBC’s The Wide Country, a drama about modern rodeo performers that aired for twenty-eight episodes in 1962–1963. He also had the distinction of appearing in the debut episode of CBS’s The Twilight Zone, titled “Where Is Everybody?” which aired on October 2, 1959— the same night as the premiere of Hotel de Paree.
In 1962, he and Claude Akins guest-starred as feuding brothers in “The Stubborn Stumbos” episode of Marilyn Maxwell’s ABC drama series Bus Stop. In 1967, Holliman guest-starred on Wayne Maunder’s short-lived ABC military-western series Custer. In 1970, Holliman starred in the TV movie Tribes as the antagonist Master Sergeant Frank DePayster, co-starring with Darren McGavin and Jan Michael Vincent. In 1970 and 1971, Holliman made two appearances in the western comedy series Alias Smith and Jones starring Pete Duel (né Deuel) and Ben Murphy.
From 1974–1978, he was cast as Sergeant Bill Crowley opposite Angie Dickinson in the Police Woman series. He co-starred in all 91 episodes of the hit series, playing the police department superior of undercover officer Pepper Anderson.
Earl continued to appear in television guest roles throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s. He shared a starring role in the CBS movie “Country Gold” made in Nashville which also featured Loni Anderson, Linda Hamilton and Cooper Huckabee. He was also a regular celebrity panelist on Hollywood Squares, where he was recognized for his ability to trick the contestants with believable bluff answers.
His most notable role during this period was in the hit mini-series The Thorn Birds with Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. He also took part in the Gunsmoke reunion movie “Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge” in 1987 as Jake Flagg. He was an occasional celebrity on the $25,000 and $100,000 Pyramid game shows between 1983-1991. In 1991, Holliman had a guest-star role on Murder, She Wrote, in the Season 7 episode “Who Killed JB Fletcher?”
Later in his career, Holliman starred in the 1997-1999 television series Night Man as Frank Domino, a semi-retired police officer and protagonist character’s father.
