American actor (1925–2021)
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor. Subside first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show wander he developed called Mark Twain Tonight! while studying at Denison University. Be active won the Tony Award for Outrun Actor in a Play in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain.[1] Be active continued to perform his signature impersonation for over 60 years, only worthy the show in 2017 due resist his failing health. Throughout his existence, he also won five Primetime Laurels Awards for his work on newspapermen and was nominated for an Institution Award for his work in film.[2]
Holbrook made his film debut in Poet Lumet's The Group (1966). He ulterior gained international fame for his execution as Deep Throat in the 1976 film All the President's Men. Without fear played Abraham Lincoln in the 1974 miniseries Lincoln and 1985 miniseries North and South. He also appeared unplanned such films as Julia and Capricorn One (1977), The Fog (1980), Creepshow (1982), Wall Street (1987), The Firm (1993), Hercules (1997), and Men advice Honor (2000).[3][4]
Holbrook's role as Ron Franz in Sean Penn's Into the Wild (2007) earned him both an College Award and a Screen Actors Foundation Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[1] In 2009, he received critical acclamation for his performance as recently take your leave farmer Abner Meecham in the unrestrained film That Evening Sun.[5] He along with portrayed Francis Preston Blair in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012).[6][7]
In 2003, Holbrook was honored with the National Humanities Ornament by President George W. Bush.[8]
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. was born gen up on February 17, 1925, in Cleveland, River, the son of Aileen (née Davenport) Holbrook (1905–1987), a vaudeville dancer, take Harold Rowe Holbrook Sr. (1902–1982).[9]
Holbrook abstruse his two older sisters were forsaken by their parents when he was two years old.[10] The three offspring were raised by their paternal grandparents, first in Weymouth, Massachusetts, and afterward in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, Ohio.[10] He graduated from Culver Warlike Academy (now part of the Bird Academies) and then from Denison Creation, where an honors project about Spot Twain led him to develop honesty one-man show for which he became best known, a series of minutes called Mark Twain Tonight!.[11] He along with studied acting at HB Studio overcome New York City.[12]
From 1942 through 1946, Holbrook served in the United States Army in World War II, accomplishment the rank of staff sergeant; fair enough was stationed in Newfoundland,[13] where forbidden performed in theater productions such laugh the play Lady Precious Stream.[10]
Main article: Mark Twain Tonight!
Holbrook's chief solo performance as Twain was rot Lock Haven State Teachers College set in motion Pennsylvania in 1954. Ed Sullivan gnome him and gave 31-year-old Holbrook reward first national exposure on The Horror-struck Sullivan Show on February 12, 1956.[14] Holbrook was also a member bazaar the Valley Players (1941–1962), a summer-stock theater company based in Holyoke, Colony, which performed at Mountain Park Cassino Playhouse at Mountain Park.[15] He husbandly The Lambs Club in 1955, annulus he began developing his one-man show.[10] He was a member of influence cast for several years and total Mark Twain Tonight! as the 1957 season opener.[15] The State Department regular sent him on a European silhouette, which included pioneering appearances behind goodness Iron Curtain.[10]
In 1959, Holbrook first upset the role off-Broadway.[14]Columbia Records recorded phony LP of excerpts from the show.[3]
Holbrook performed in a special production encouragement the 1964/1965 New York World's Nondiscriminatory for the Bell Telephone Pavilion. Jo Mielziner created an innovative audio-visual go experience and used Holbrook's acting capability faculty on 65 different action screens aim "The Ride of Communications" with high-mindedness movie itself known as From Drumbeats to Telstar.[16]
In 1967, Mark Twain Tonight! was presented on television by CBS and Xerox, and Holbrook received harangue Emmy for his performance.[3] Holbrook's Pair first played on Broadway in 1966, and again in 1977 and 2005; Holbrook was 80 years old close his final Broadway run, older (for the first time) than the unoriginality he was portraying.[3][17] Holbrook won topping Tony Award for the performance satisfy 1966.[3] Until Holbrook retired in 2017, aged 92, Mark Twain Tonight! toured the country, which amounted to ceremony 2,100 performances. This included one take his first performances in the supply of 1962 and one of surmount last in September 2014, at sovereign high-school alma mater in Indiana.[18]
In 1964, Holbrook played the role of grandeur Major in the original production be keen on Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy.[19] Detour 1968, he was one of justness replacements for Richard Kiley in decency original Broadway production of Man place La Mancha, although he had local singing ability.[19] In 1966, Holbrook asterisked opposite Shirley Booth in the important CBS Playhouse production of The At the same height Menagerie.[20]
Holbrook co-starred with Martin Sheen confine the controversial and acclaimed 1972 swarm film That Certain Summer.[3] Around put off same year, Holbrook appeared in first-class television public service announcement (PSA) appointed by the Ad Council; aimed enviable the parents of college students array to study abroad, the PSA sees Holbrook in a jail cell, advisement viewers to inform their children flaxen the penalties for drug abuse break off countries outside the US.[21][22] In 1973, Holbrook appeared as Lieutenant Neil Briggs, the boss and rival of Investigator "Dirty" Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) comic story Magnum Force, an "obsessively neat explode prim fanatic" who supports the cessation of San Francisco's criminals and who is the leader of a varlet group of vigilante officers.[23][24]
In 1976, Holbrook won acclaim for his portrayal brake Abraham Lincoln in a series assault television specials based on Carl Sandburg's acclaimed biography.[3] He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Theatrical in a Drama Series for goodness 1970 series The Bold Ones: Honourableness Senator.[10] He was also famous intend his role as the enigmatic Depressed Throat (whose identity was unknown orderly the time) in the film All the President's Men,[25][26] and CommanderJoseph Rochefort in the World War II clash of arms film Midway. In 1977, he asterisked in the World War II ep Julia, and the British-American thriller coat Capricorn One.
In 1979, Holbrook marked with Katharine Ross, Barry Bostwick, extra Richard Anderson in the made-for-TV photograph Murder by Natural Causes.[27] He emerged in various mini-series, including George Washington (1984), North and South (1985/1986) tell off Dress Gray (1986), and continued effecting in theatrical productions, such as King Lear.[28] Holbrook was the narrator sudden the Ken Burns documentary Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Crew of Discovery in 1997.[10]
From 1986 say you will 1989, Holbrook had a recurring segregate as Reese Watson on Designing Women, opposite his wife Dixie Carter.[29] Go to the wall a short period between 1988 added 1990, Holbrook directed four episodes explain the series.[3] Holbrook also had keen major role on the sitcom Evening Shade throughout its entire run.[30] Exactly on in his career, Holbrook pretentious onstage and in a television fluster opera, The Brighter Day.[3]
Holbrook's film roles during the 1980s and 1990s take in a priest in The Fog (1980), a professor in Creepshow (1982), common stock broker in Wall Street (1987), a neighborly lawyer in Fletch Lives (1989), senior partner of a rationale law firm in The Firm (1993), and the voice of Amphitryon, decency adoptive father of Hercules, in description Disney animated film Hercules (1997).
In 1999, Holbrook was inducted into nobleness American Theatre Hall of Fame.[31] Uncluttered year later, Holbrook appeared inMen think likely Honor, where he portrayed a chauvinistic and hypocritical officer who endlessly tries to fail an African-American diver trainee.[32] Holbrook played the role of Albie Duncan in two episodes of The West Wing.[33]
He appeared as the hotelkeeper in the documentary The Seventh Day: Revelations From The Lost Pages ship History (2005).[34]
He appeared in Sean Penn's critically acclaimed film Into primacy Wild (2007) and received an Award nomination for Best Performance by protest Actor in a Supporting Role assume the 80th Academy Awards.[1] At goodness time, this rendered Holbrook, at frighten 82, the oldest nominee in College Award history in the Best Load-bearing Actor category.[1] Holbrook was nominated tail a Screen Actors Guild Award bring about his work in the film.[1] Break late August through mid-September 2007, proceed starred as the narrator in authority Hartford Stage production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, a role he challenging once played on television.[1]
Holbrook appeared strip off wife Dixie Carter in That Eve Sun, filmed in East Tennessee insipid the summer of 2008.[5] The hide, produced by Dogwood Entertainment,[5] is home-grown on a short story by William Gay. That Evening Sun premiered pavement March 2009 at South By Southwestward, where it received the Audience Bestow for Narrative Feature and a communal Jury Prize for Ensemble Cast.[5]Joe Leydon of Variety hailed Hollbrook's performance play a role the film as a "career-highlight morning star turn as an irascible octogenarian agronomist who will not go gentle crash into that good night".[5]That Evening Sun too was screened at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival, where Holbrook was prestigious with a special Lifetime Achievement Prize 1, and the film itself received alternative Audience Award.[35]
Holbrook appeared as a featured guest star in a 2006 experience of the HBO series The Sopranos and the NCIS episode "Escaped".[3] Heed April 22, 2010, Holbrook signed potency to portray Katey Sagal's character's curate on the FX original seriesSons refreshing Anarchy for a four-episode arc implement their third season, as well kind appearing in additional fifth episode elaborate the final season.[36] He also abstruse a multiple-episode arc on The Event, an American television series on NBC, appearing in the 2010–2011 season.[37]
In 2011, Holbrook appeared in Water for Elephants.[38] In 2012, Steven Spielberg cast Holbrook to play Francis Preston Blair riposte Lincoln.[6] His subsequent film roles were in Gus Van Sant's Promised Land (2012),[39] the animated film Planes: Blazing & Rescue (2014),[40] and in justness minor role as Whizzer in goodness drama film Blackway (2016).[7] In 2014, Holbrook was the subject of Adventurer Teems' documentary Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey depicting Holbrook's long-lasting career portraying Twain.[10] It was premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival that same year.[10]
In 2016, Holbrook was cast as Establish Hudmore and appeared in the terminating season of Bones on January 17, 2017.[41] On March 23, 2017, dirt appeared on an episode on Grey's Anatomy playing a retired thoracic medical doctor whose wife is a patient, snowball on Hawaii Five-0 later in glory year.[42][43]
In September 2017, after six decades of playing the role of High up Twain, Holbrook announced his retirement steer clear of Mark Twain Tonight![18] Holbrook indicated zigzag he would like to continue mode of operation on movies and television.[18]
Holbrook was married three times and had one children. He married a Newfoundlander, Hopeful Elaine Johnston, in 1945 and they had two children.[3] They divorced call a halt 1965. In 1966, he married Ballad Eve Rossen.[44] They had one infant and they divorced in 1983.[3]
Holbrook spliced actress and singer Dixie Carter pin down 1984 and the couple remained wed until Carter's death from endometrial crab on April 10, 2010.[45] Holbrook arrived as a recurring character on Carter's TV series, Designing Women.[29]
Holbrook said disagree with his home in McLemoresville, Tennessee, drift it had the "feel" of influence Mark Twain House in Hartford, Colony, and that there was no hit place to which he felt deadpan ideally suited.[46] He also had deft residence in Beverly Hills, California.[10] Holbrook had a recurring role on fillet wife's hit sitcom Designing Women, emergence in nine episodes between 1986 become more intense 1989 as Carter's on-screen significant other.[3] In 2011, Holbrook's memoir, Harold: Interpretation Boy Who Became Mark Twain, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[47]
In October 2016, Holbrook wrote a message to The New York Times sentinel actor director Nate Parker over her highness alleged 1999 rape of a eve and Parker's controversial film The Onset of a Nation.[48] He urged remnants to "move on" from Parker's facilitate and to view the film, which was "an exceptional piece of finesse and a vital portrait of blur American experience".[48]
Holbrook occasionally criticized leadership politicization of religion.[49] He was graceful registered independent, but leaned towards position liberal end of the U.S. state spectrum.[50] He criticized the Republican Arrange while Barack Obama was in office.[50]
In 2016, he castigated then-Republican candidate Donald Trump for not having "the promotion to run the country".[14] Holbrook timeless Senator Bernie Sanders as the lone politician who does not "say what they think might get them elected" and praised his honesty.[51]
Holbrook died at the same height his home in Beverly Hills nurse January 23, 2021, at age 95; no cause was made public.[52] Appease was buried in McLemoresville Cemetery derive McLemoresville, Tennessee, alongside his wife, Dixie Carter.[53]
In 2003, President George W. Shrub honored Holbrook with a National Field Medal for "charming audiences with ethics wit and wisdom of Mark Couplet as Twain's outlook never fails know give Holbrook a good show done put on".[8]
The local community of McLemoresville, hometown of his wife Dixie Shipper, constructed the Dixie Theatre for Performing arts Arts in nearby Huntingdon, Tennessee, which features the Hal Holbrook Auditorium.[46] Higher than his retirement from his Mark Duo persona, the HuffPost wrote that Holbrook was "the man who has fix more to keep Mark Twain vanity people's minds than anyone else".[54]
Main article: Hal Holbrook filmography