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Happy streaming. And we continue with our American stories in a career spanning more than four decades and appearing in one hundred and forty nine movies. Western star Tim Holt could be seen on the big screen in films such as Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine and Swiss Family Robinson. Here to tell another Hollywood goes to war story is Roger McGrath. McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Highwomen and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier, a U.S. Marine and former history professor at UCLA. Dr. McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and is a regular contributor here at Our American Stories.
Here's McGrath. One of the most handsome and recognizable faces from the movies, especially westerns of the late 1930s through the early 1950s, was Tim Holt. He appeared in more than 70 movies, several of them considered classics, including Stagecoach in 1939, Swiss Family Robinson in 1940, The Magnificent Ambersons in 1942, My Darling Clementine in 1946 and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1948.
Audiences loved him in his supporting roles in these major productions, but also in his leading man roles in dozens of B westerns. What is generally forgotten about Tim Holt was his World War II service as a B-29 bombardier for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart and four air medals. Tim Holt is born Charles John Holt the third in 1919 in Beverly Hills, California. His father, known as Jack Holt, is a leading man in silent films when Tim is born. Gifted with a strong voice, Jack has no problem making the transition to talkies.
All the other, he appears in some 80s silence and then another 80 talkies, making him one of the most prolific actors in the history of Hollywood. Tim Holt's mother is the former Margaret Woods, the daughter of a business tycoon. Her father is so upset with her marrying an actor that he disowns her.
He later relents. Well, they should have because Jack and Margaret Holt stay married for 35 years until Jack dies of a heart attack. Although Tim Holt grows up in Beverly Hills as a son of an actor, his childhood and that of his two sisters is remarkably normal. He does everything typical boys of the 1920s and 1930s do. Nonetheless, he also, whenever possible, accompanies his dad on location shoots and appears as a child actor in two movies. For high school, his father sends him off to Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana.
The school has rigorous academic standards and strict discipline. Holt plays on the football and polo teams and is also a member of the school's famed Black Horse Troop. When later called upon to ride a horse in westerns, Tim Holt is in his element. Holt excels in the classroom also. For most of his time at Culver Military Academy, Holt's roommate is Hal Roach Jr., son of the famous Hollywood producer Hal Roach.
Hal Roach Jr. was no slouch either. He's captain of the academy's football team that goes undefeated. Another school chum of Tim Holt's is Bud Baedeker, who will later direct dozens of westerns. Baedeker said Holt walks in the evenings down the dormitory hall wearing a six-gun and holster and practices quick draw. Baedeker said Holt would exclaim, I'm going to be a western star someday. Holt graduates from Culver Military Academy in 1936 with honors, ranking 14th in a class of 115.
He returns to Beverly Hills and enrolls at UCLA. However, he soon drops out of college and joins the Westwood Theater Guild to develop his acting skills. Holt's a natural and gets his first credited movie role in Stella Dallas in 1937. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, the movie is both a critical and commercial success.
Holt plays one of the suitors of Stanwyck's daughter and he receives good reviews. In 1938, he appears in five movies, including The Law West of Tombstone, in which he shares the lead with Harry Carey. 1939 is another five movie year for Tim Holt.
In the spirit of Culver, he plays an officer in a story about the very school he himself graduated from, the Culver Military Academy. His most memorable performance in 1939, though, is in possibly the greatest western ever made, John Ford's Stagecoach. Holt is the young, handsome cavalry officer, Lieutenant Blanchard, who leads a troop of cavalry accompanying the stagecoach for part of its journey. At a bit more than 31 minutes into the movie, there's a fork in the road. A stagecoach takes the right fork, which is the way to Lordsburg.
Following orders, the cavalry takes the left fork. Tim Holt halts his horns and watches the stagecoach as it rolls away. He takes off his hat and, with a wide smile on his face, vigorously waves his hat at the departing stagecoach. Louise Platt, playing Mrs. Mallory, the pregnant wife of one of Holt's fellow cavalry officers, leans out a side window in the stage, smiles, and waves her handkerchief back at Holt. The broad smile on Holt's face slowly fades as he watches the stage move farther away, knowing it will soon be beyond the cavalry's protection.
Now, with an expression of concern on his face, Holt firmly pulls his hat back down on his head and adjusts his holster, as if to say it's back to business, and rides off to catch up with the cavalry troop. Fading at the same time is the music that is the theme of the stagecoach throughout the movie, the melody of Will Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie. It's a scene that can be watched over and over again, another John Ford gem. It's a Tim Holt gem as well.
He plays his part with subtlety and nuance. It's four movies for Tim Holt in 1940, including starring roles in three of the movies, Laddie, The Fargo Kid, and Wagon Train, and a strong supporting role in Swiss Family Robinson. His production increases to seven movies in 1941, six of them as the lead in westerns.
1942 is Tim Holt's banner year. Not only does he star as the lead in seven westerns, but his strong supporting role in the highly acclaimed The Magnificent Ambersons shows off his acting chops in an unlikely role as the spoiled son of a wealthy family. Tim Holt certainly is the western action star. He told Bud Baedeker back at the Culver Military Academy he would someday be, but he's also an accomplished actor. By the end of 1942, Tim Holt is still only 23 years old, yet he's one of the busiest actors in Hollywood, having appeared in more than 30 movies. However, he's also an American patriot, and after he appears in four movies in 1943, he says goodbye to Hollywood and joins the Army Air Forces. As a graduate of the Culver Military Academy, it's not surprising he excels in officer school and is commissioned as second lieutenant. He then goes to flight school, but by the time he finishes his training, the Army Air Forces is in desperate need of bombardiers for its newest plane, the B-29 Superfortress.
Holt now goes through intensive training on the Norden bombsite. And we've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story of western star Tim Holt, and what a career he had. Seven movies alone in 1941.
By the age of 23, he'd starred in two classics, John Ford's Stagecoach and Orson Welles's Magnificent Ambersons, and he dropped that, left that behind like so many stars and directors of his day to head off to America's armed forces. When we come back, more of Tim Holt's story, more of our Hollywood Goes to War series, here on Our American Stories. You wake up, put on your Ray-Ban meta glasses, classic style, innovative tech. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee, desperately. So you say, hey meta, how do I make a latte? To make a latte, brew two shots of espresso. After meta AI gets you caffeinated, you start walking to work and you need a soundtrack.
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Happy streaming. And we continue with our American stories. After starring in some of the greatest motion pictures of its day, Tim Holt said goodbye to Hollywood, joined the Army Air Forces, and became a bombardier on their newest plane, the B-29 Superfortress. Holt went through training on the Norden bombsight, the same sighting mechanism used to aim the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. Norden's production effort was on a similar scale to the Manhattan Project. The overall cost was 1.1 billion dollars.
Let's return to McGrath and the story of Tim Holt. The Norden bombsight is said to be so accurate that a bombardier can drop a bomb in a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet. The bombsight is a top secret instrument and is removed after each flight and kept under guard. The Norden consists of a telescopic sight and a mechanical calculator that computes bomb trajectory, accounting for the plane's speed, altitude, and drift.
Also and importantly, the sight is linked to the plane's automatic pilot by what is called automatic flight control equipment, or AFCE. As the bombardier operates the Norden bombsight, he is, through the AFCE, flying the plane. Holt impresses his superiors, who keep him stateside for several months as an instructor and then more months working with both the Navy and the Marines on bombing tactics. In April 1945, Holt, now a first lieutenant, is off to the Pacific as a bombardier on a B-29 in the 62nd Bombardment Squadron, part of the 39th Bombardment Group. By May, he's flying off airstrips on Guam to bomb the home islands of Japan. It's a 3,000-mile round trip, and the B-29s not only have to deal with Japanese fighters over the home islands, but also with engine fires and mechanical and electrical failures on the long flight.
Altogether, the Army Air Forces lose more than 400 B-29s in the long-distance raids. Holt flies 22 missions. His first is against the Otake oil refinery on Japan's main island, Honshu. His last is against industrial sites in the city of Isasaki, also on Honshu. On that final flight, he drops his bombs early on the morning of August 14. Japan surrenders later that day. When the surrender is announced, Holt's B-29, with almost six feet of its left wing shied away and 175 bullet holes in its fuselage, is limping home to Guam. Holt and several other crew members are nursing wounds. Late in the fall of 1945, Holt returns home.
His decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. In January 1946, he's released from active service. Within a few months, Tim Holt is back to acting when John Ford begins shooting My Darling Clementine during the spring of 1946. Holt is hired to play Virgil Earp in a dramatic and highly fictionalized version of the Earp and Clanton feud in Tombstone, Arizona, culminating in the shootout at the OK Corral. Playing Wyatt Earp in the lead role is Henry Fonda. Victor Mature plays Doc Holliday, and Ward Bond is Morgan Earp. Walter Brennan plays Old Man Clanton. A big-budget Western, My Darling Clementine is both a box office and critical success. In 1947, Tim Holt stars in 3B Westerns. Towards the end of the year, he begins work on a movie that will be released in January 1948, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Holt plays Humphrey Bogart's mining partner in The Tale of Gold, Greed, and Treachery in the Mountains of Mexico. Not for a moment did I ever intend to rob you or do you any harm. Just like I said, I'd fight for you and yours just the same as I'd fight for the old man's. If you really mean that, give me back my gun. My pal.
Wouldn't it be better the way things are to separate tomorrow or even tonight? That would suit you fine, wouldn't it? Why me more than you? Say you could fall on me from behind, sneak up and shoot me in the back.
All right, I'll go first. And wait for me on the trail, ambush me? Why wouldn't I do it right here and now if I meant to kill you? I'll tell you why. Because you're yella. You haven't got nerve enough to pull the trigger while I'm looking you straight in the eye.
If you think like that, there's nothing to do but to tie you up every night. I'll tell you what. I'll make you a little bet.
Three times 35 is 105. I'll bet you $105,000 you go to sleep before I do. The movie will be nominated for Best Picture and John Huston will win Oscars for Best Director and Best Writing. Walter Huston will be awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
The movie is a hit in every way and remains one of the top movies ever made. Holt stars in 5B Westerns in 1948 and another five in 1949. 1950 through 1952 would be more the same, although he has a strong supporting role in 1951 in His Kind of a Woman, a big-budget film starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. After 1952, Tim Holt appears in only three more movies.
One is The Monster That Challenged the World, a science fiction yarn about a deadly creature from the sea invading waterways in California. Holt stars as a Navy officer who is tasked with tracking down the monster. By the early 1950s, Tim Holt simply stops caring much about Hollywood. In the late 1940s, he had bought a ranch in Oklahoma near the town of Harrop. He escapes to his ranch as often as he can. In 1952, he marries his third wife and by the next year the two of them are living on the ranch full-time.
They will have three children together. Holt also has one child from his first marriage. Holt is now living the life he dreamed of for years while working in Hollywood. He rides in rodeos, becomes the general manager of a country and western music station, and buys an interest in a traveling rodeo show.
After 20 years of what he considers an idyllic life, he's struck by cancer and dies in 1973. The governor of Oklahoma declares a Tim Holt day and the town of Harrop names one of its roads Tim Holt Drive. Although Tim Holt had strong supporting roles and occasionally starring roles in movies that were not westerns, he's best remembered as a western hero.
However, that was all play-acting. In real life, he was a real hero, flying 22 missions over Japan, facing heavy anti-aircraft fire and swarms of Japanese fighters, and coming home with the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and four air medals. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Roger McGrath, who's a frequent contributor here on Our American Stories. And what a story he told about actor Tim Holt. And the greatest part of his life was the real life part he played, helping commandeer and bomb into submission to the Japanese war machine. Four air medals, a Distinguished Flying Cross, and Purple Heart.
And of course, his movie parts, the most memorable hands down, his work in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, playing Humphrey Bogart's mining partner. The story of Tim Holt, the western star part and the war hero part here on Our American Stories. This is Delta Airlines with T-Mobile for Business.
Take your business further at T-Mobile.com slash now. I don't know if you know this, but when you don't have time to read The Washington Post, you can listen to it. Almost every article has a listening option. And right now, you can become a Washington Post subscriber for just 50 cents a week.
It's an incredible deal. Stay on top of what's happening by signing up at washingtonpost.com slash pod. That's washingtonpost.com slash pod. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre bass stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeart Christmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs, and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeart Radio on the Roku Channel.
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