William Holden: Difference between revisions

Holden was born William Franklin Beedle Jr. on April 17, 1918, in [[O'Fallon, Illinois]], son of Mary Blanche Beedle (née Ball), a schoolteacher, and her husband, William Franklin Beedle Sr., an industrial [[chemist]].<ref name="ref1">[http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/williamh/index.html "Ancestry of William Holden"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080222041044/http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/williamh/index.html |date=February 22, 2008 }}, Genealogy.com; retrieved November 13, 2011.</ref> He had two younger brothers, Robert Westfield Beedle and Richard Porter Beedle. One of his father's grandmothers, Rebecca Westfield, was born in England, while some of his mother's ancestors settled in Virginia's [[Lancaster County, Virginia|Lancaster County]] after emigrating from England in the 17th century.<ref name="ref1"/> His brother Robert ("Bobbie") became a U.S. Navy fighter pilot and was killed in action in World War II, over [[New Ireland (island)|New Ireland]], a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific.{{Citation needed |date=June 2023}}