Tim Holt - Acting Career

Acting Career

In 1938 at the age of 19, Holt, after five minor roles, landed a major role under star Harry Carey in The Law West of Tombstone. It was the first of the many Western films he made during the 1940s. During this time his sister, Jennifer Holt, also became a leading star in the Western film genre.

After playing young Lieutenant Blanchard in the 1939 classic Stagecoach, Holt had one of the leading roles in Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). He also starred as a Nazi in Hitler's Children (1943). After making this film, he became a decorated combat veteran of World War II, flying in the Pacific Theatre with the United States Army Air Force as a B-29 bombardier.

Following the war, Holt returned to films, appearing as Virgil Earp to Henry Fonda's Wyatt Earp in the John Ford western My Darling Clementine. Holt was next cast in the role that he is probably most remembered for (in a film in which his father also appeared in a small part)—that of Bob Curtin to Humphrey Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Before the film was released, Holt did another four Westerns and afterward made two dozen more up until 1952. He was then absent from the screen for five years until he starred in a less-than-successful horror film, The Monster That Challenged the World, in 1957. Over the next 16 years, he appeared in only two more motion pictures.