Earl Holliman, star of ‘The Rainmaker’ and ‘Police Woman,’ dead at 96
nypost.comthe Hollywood Reporter Tuesday.The late star made his acting debut with one line of dialogue in the 1953 Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy “Scared Stiff.”Three years later, he starred in the Western romance “The Rainmaker” alongside Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn.
He beat out Elvis Presley for the role and won a Golden Globe Award for his performance.Holliman’s other notable films include “Broken Lance,” “Forbidden Planet,” “Giant,” “Hot Spell,” “Sharky’s Machine” and “Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge.”On television, Holliman appeared in the very first episode of “The Twilight Zone” in October 1959.
He played a man with amnesia in a deserted town.In the ’70s, Holliman had a recurring role as Lt. Bill Crowley in the police drama “Police Woman.” Angie Dickinson was his co-star.“She’d get into trouble and I’d run in and save her,” Holliman said about a typical storyline on the show in a 2003 interview, per THR. “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.”The NBC series also had major guest stars like Mark Harmon, Joan Collins, Sam Elliott, William Shatner, Adam West, Barry Williams, Smokey Robinson, Kim and Kyle Richards, and Sandra Dee.Holliman made appearances in the shows “Hotel de Paree,” “Gunsmoke” and “Murder, She Wrote” as well.
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