I’m pretty sure it’s not just Hollywood, I’ve seen old drawings and paintings of people in battle or duels and they always only use one hand to aim and fire pistols, even after multishot revolvers and pistols are developed.
Why? It’s not like using two hands only became more supportive and stable after 1910.
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Most of the pictures you see are either duels or horsemen using pistols. Both of those tend to use one hand, though for different reasons. The horseman has to use the other hand to control the horse. The duelist is just trying to present a smaller target and shield his vitals by standing sideways and by keeping his arm and his pistol up. Better to get shot in the arm and lose the duel than to get hit in the chest and die.
You don’t see many people using pistols in combat, other than mounted cavalry, because pistols really aren’t very good weapons of war. You can get much more accuracy and range with a musket or rifle of the same time period. Usually only an officer would carry a pistol, because he really didn’t expect to be in direct combat anyway.
As firearms improved, and combat changed from open battles in the field to fighting in cities, the range and accuracy started to matter a bit less, and soldiers started carrying pistols and developing better ways to hold them.
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