Judd Holdren
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Judd Holdren was an American film actor best known for his starring roles in the serials Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere, Zombies of the Stratosphere, The Lost Planet and the semi-serial Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe during 1951 - 1953.
He was born near Villisca, Iowa on October 16, 1915, one of 10 children in a farming family, and showed early interest in an acting career, dropping out of high school to travel to Omaha, Nebraska, where he studied at the Omaha Playhouse.
During World War II he served in the Coast Guard, then appeared in Hollywood where the regular employment he found at first was as a male model. Most of his early film parts, beginning in 1949, were uncredited bits, but he got a lead role in Purple Heart Diary and the serial version of the adventures of Captain Video (both 1951) becoming the third actor (after Richard Coogan and Al Hodge) to assume the role of the heroic Captain. After 1953's The Lost Planet, Holdren tried to maintain a foothold in film features and TV, with very limited success.
He appeared in a number of ongoing TV series, such as Dragnet and The Lone Ranger, but usually in bit parts, often uncredited. His last significant film appearances were in very minor roles in features such as Jeanne Eagels, The Ice Palace and The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1957 - 1960). The rapidity of his descent is indicated by the fact that in Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1953) he plays the lead role and Richard Crane plays his (semi-comical) sidekick, whereas in the TV series Rocky Jones Space Ranger (1953 - 54) Richard Crane plays the lead role and Holdren has only a walk-on part in two episodes as "Ranger Higgins."
Holdren was tall, dark and handsome, as required of leading men of the era, and could use a deep, commanding voice when the role required it. However, his line delivery was often emotionless and inflectionless.
After 1960 Holdren became a full-time insurance salesman. During the days he was trying to establish himself in Hollywood he was seen in public as the escort of many different Hollywood beauties, but never married. He was 58 when he committed suicide, dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on March 11, 1974.
He is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood.
