“He was a guy with these incredible matinee idol looks who could play these characters who were compromised morally,” says Jones. “But even when he’s playing a kept man, he’s appealing and appalling at the same time. He could modulate between those registers beautifully.”

Mortality is a theme in many of Holden’s movies, whether it’s the doomed Navy pilot in “The Bridges at Toko-Ri” (1954), the bank robber trying to make one last score in “The Wild Bunch” (1969) or the middle-aged widower who becomes involved with teenage hippie Kay Lenz in Clint Eastwood’s “Breezy” (1971, above).

Holden, a serious alcoholic, aged rapidly between his stunning performance as a sexy drifter in “Picnic” (1955, below with Kim Novak) and a TV executive bewitched by mad programmer Faye Dunaway in the brilliant “Network” just 11 years later.

He died at just 63, after falling in his apartment and bleeding to death while under the influence. That was in 1981, but Holden would be remembered today if he had only played POWs in “Stalag 17” (1953), for which he won a Best Actor Oscar, and the Best Picture winner “The Bridge Over the River Kwai” (1957).