Editing William Holden (section)

===''Golden Boy''===
[[File:William Holden and George Raft in Invisible Stripes trailer.jpg|right|thumb|With [[George Raft]] (right) in ''[[Invisible Stripes]]'' (1939)]]

Holden's first starring role was in ''[[Golden Boy (1939 film)|Golden Boy]]'' (1939), costarring [[Barbara Stanwyck]], in which he played a violinist-turned-[[Boxing|boxer]].<ref name=obit /> The film was made for Columbia, which negotiated a sharing agreement with Paramount for Holden's services.

Holden was still an unknown actor when he made ''Golden Boy'', while Stanwyck was already a film star. She liked Holden and went out of her way to help him succeed, devoting her personal time to coaching and encouraging him, which made them lifelong friends. When she received her [[Academy Honorary Award|Honorary Oscar]] at the [[54th Academy Awards|1982 Academy Award ceremony]], Holden had died in an accident just a few months prior. At the end of her acceptance speech, she paid him a personal tribute: "I loved him very much, and I miss him. He always wished that I would get an Oscar. And so tonight, my golden boy, you got your wish".<ref>video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBhPI95FDZw&t=2m20s "Barbara Stanwyck's Honorary Award: 1982 Oscars"], Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences via Youtube.com; accessed November 12, 2016.</ref><ref>Robert Osborne, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuE4nHiXTf0 "TCM – Golden Boy"] via Youtube.com; accessed November 12, 2016.</ref>

Next he starred with [[George Raft]] and [[Humphrey Bogart]] in the [[Warner Bros.]] gangster epic ''[[Invisible Stripes]]'' (1939), billed below Raft and above Bogart.<ref>{{cite news| title=The Screen ... <!-- part of this title is omitted because it does not relate to Holden -->Strand Shows 'Invisible Stripes'| first=Frank S.| last=Nigent| date=January 13, 1940| url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C00EEDE113EE23ABC4B52DFB766838B659EDE| newspaper=The New York Times| page=16| access-date=April 9, 2018|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Back at Paramount, he starred with [[Bonita Granville]] in ''[[Those Were the Days!]]'' (1940) followed by the role of George Gibbs in the film adaptation of ''[[Our Town (1940 film)|Our Town]]'' (1940), done for [[Sol Lesser]] at United Artists.<ref>Capua 2010, pp. 16–17.</ref>

Columbia put Holden in a Western with [[Jean Arthur]], ''[[Arizona (1940 film)|Arizona]]'' (1940), then at Paramount he was in a hugely popular war film, ''[[I Wanted Wings]]'' (1941) with [[Ray Milland]] and [[Veronica Lake]].

He did another Western at Columbia, ''[[Texas (1941 film)|Texas]]'' (1941) with [[Glenn Ford]], and a musical comedy at Paramount, ''[[The Fleet's In (film)|The Fleet's In]]'' (1942) with [[Eddie Bracken]], [[Dorothy Lamour]], and [[Betty Hutton]].<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/variety149-1943-01#page/n57/mode/1up "101 Pix Gross in Millions" ''Variety'', January 6, 1943 p 58]</ref>

He stayed at Paramount for ''[[The Remarkable Andrew]]'' (1942) with [[Brian Donlevy]], then made ''[[Meet the Stewarts]]'' (1943) at Columbia. Paramount reunited Bracken and him in ''[[Young and Willing]]'' (1943).