Career: Holden went on to star in several minor pictures before serving in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War, where he acted in training films for the First Motion Picture Unit. His big break came when Billy Wilder cast him as screenwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard (1950). The role earned Holden an Academy Award nomination. He went on to star in a number of acclaimed films, including Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Towering Inferno (1974) and Network (1976). He won an Academy Award for Stalag 17, and a Primetime Emmy in 1974 for The Blue Knight. He died in his Santa Monica apartment on November 12, 1981 at the age of 63.

Career: Widmark was performing in a stage production in Chicago when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year film contract. His first movie role was Kiss of Death (1947), a part that earned him a Golden Globe and his only Academy Award nomination. His early films were The Street with No Name (1948), Road House (1948) and Yellow Sky (1948) and he quickly developed a reputation for playing movie villains. After demanding more diverse roles, he went on play a wide range of parts in the likes of Panic in the Streets (1950), No Way Out (1950), Night and the City (1950), Broken Lance (1954), The Alamo (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and Madigan (1968). He made the transition to the small screen in 1971 with the TV movie Vanished, and he reprised his detective role from Madigan in six TV movies. After a career that had seen him star in more than 60 films, he retired from acting in 2001. After a long illness, he died in 2008 at the age of 93.