Gay actor Earl Holliman, best known for playing Sergeant Bill Crowley in the 1970s procedural cop drama Police Woman, has died at the age of 96.
His husband Craig Curtis confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Holliman died at home in Studio City, Los Angeles, on Monday (25 November) after receiving hospice care.
Born into a poor family in Louisiana in 1928, Holliman began his acting career in small film and TV roles in the early 1950s, following a year being enlisted in the US Navy during World War II.
In 1956, he bagged a small role in epic drama film Giant, starring alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest ever players, including leads Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. He played Bob Dace in the western film, the son-in-law to Taylor and Hudson’s characters.
That same year, he scored a big breakout role in the 1956 western romance film The Rainmaker, for which he won a Golden Globe award in the Best Supporting Actor category for his role as Jim Curry – the lovestruck teen brother to Katharine Hepburn’s leading lady, Lizzie Curry. Despite being up against the King of Rock and Roll himself, Elvis Presley, for the accolade, Holliman still won.
Before the decade was out, in 1959, he managed to land a starring role in CBS western series Hotel de Paree, and appeared in the very first episode of Rod Serling’s cult classic horror sci-fi series, The Twilight Zone.
The late ‘50s and 60s also saw him appearing in major film productions including The Sons of Katie Elder alongside John Wayne, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with Kirk Douglas, and Hot Spell with Shirley Booth.
During the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, he moved over into leading roles in television series, including in NBC western Wide Country and romance drama The Thorn Birds, plus his most recognisable role in Police Woman, which he starred in alongside Angie Dickinson for 91 episodes.
Speaking about his role in Police Woman, in which he played the LAPD boss to Dickinson’s Sergeant Pepper, Holliman said: “She’d get into trouble and I’d run in and save her… I would make some smart remark and she would come back at me in some sexy kind of way, and a lot of that was ad-libbed. We had a tacit kind of permission to do that.”
Alongside a steady stream of TV guest roles, his later career saw him lead ‘90s crime drama P.S. I Luv U, sitcoms Delta and Caroline in the City, and superhero series, Night Man. His role in Delta led to him being nominated for his second Golden Globe, in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role category.
He most recently appeared on screen in the 2021 documentary, Journey to Royal.
In addition to his on-screen and stage acting appearances, Holliman was known as a staunch animal rights activist, spending a quarter of a century as the prescient of the Actors and Others for Animals non-profit organisation.
Holliman never addressed his sexuality publicly, but he is survived by his husband Curtis, who paid tribute to him as a “compassionate’ and “gracious” man.
He remember Holliman as a “gracious, kind confidant, a consummate host, a man whose indefatigable positivity was evergreen and powered by a 1000-watt smile, an easy charm and infectious goodwill,” according to Variety.
“A joy and a privilege to spend time with, he was even-keeled and compassionate, possessing a deep sensitivity and mischievous sense of humor which were belied by his stoically handsome countenance.”
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