Hal Holbrook - # 253

Hal Holbrook, Actor Who Channeled Mark Twain for Decades, Dies at 95

 

He was number 253 on the list.

He won five Emmys, earned an Oscar nom at age 82 for 'Into the Wild' and starred in 'Magnum Force' and 'Wall Street.'

Hal Holbrook, the craftsman who reincarnated Mark Twain on stage and screen for more than six decades and also stood out as Abraham Lincoln and Deep Throat, two other American legends, has died. He was 95.

Holbrook died Jan. 23 in Beverly Hills, his personal assistant, Joyce Cohen, told The New York Times on Monday night.

A five-time Emmy winner, Holbrook was 82 when he became the oldest man (at the time) to receive an Oscar acting nomination when he was honored for his performance as a leatherwork expert in Into the Wild (2007).

The Cleveland native also was memorable as a Senate candidate in Wild in the Streets (1968); as the vigilante boss of police inspector Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force (1973); as a NASA exec who engineers a fake Mars landing in Capricorn One (1977); as a judge who takes matters into his own hands in The Star Chamber (1983); and as old-school stockbroker Lou Mannheim in Wall Street (1987).

Holbrook played Twain longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who made Twain his pen name in 1863. He first appeared as the famed author and humorist in the late 1940s in a show for school groups; Holbrook’s first wife, Ruby, would ask questions of famous people in history, including Twain. He turned that into the one-man show, Mark Twain Tonight!, in the 1950s.

An appearance as the Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn author on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 gave Holbrook a huge career boost, and after a stint off-Broadway, he headed to Broadway in 1966 and won a Tony for lead actor in a play.

In 1967, Holbrook re-created Mark Twain Tonight! for a CBS special and, with “The Godfather of Makeup” Dick Smith helping with his transformation, earned the first of his 12 career Emmy nominations. The actor traveled the nation with the show in the ensuing decades, performing in Twain’s trademark white coat for thousands of performances.

“Mark Twain gets me out of the bed in the morning,” Holbrook told the Los Angeles Times in 2014 before a screening of the documentary Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey at the L.A. Film Festival.

“He literally fires me up. I don’t have to fire myself up, all I have to do is lay there and think about what’s going on in my country and the world and run over some of the Twain I am going to do.”

He finally retired the one-man show in September 2017 after canceling a performance he was to do in Oklahoma City.

Holbrook collected an Emmy in 1974 for playing Lincoln in an NBC miniseries and portrayed the 16th president again in the 1985 ABC Civil War miniseries North and South and its sequel. And for Steven Spielberg’s 2012 Lincoln biopic, Holbrook played presidential adviser Preston Blair.

In Alan J. Pakula’s political thriller All the President’s Men (1976), Holbrook emerges from the shadows as Deep Throat, the government source who tells Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, respectively) to “follow the money” in their Watergate investigation.

Most recently, he appeared in as Katey Sagal’s father on FX’s Sons of Anarchy; in a recurring role as a lawyer on SundanceTV’s Rectify; as an older version of Robert Pattinson in Water for Elephants (2011); as a science teacher opposite Matt Damon in Promised Land (2012); and as fire and rescue truck Mayday in the animated Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014). He also appeared on Bones and Grey's Anatomy.

Holbrook was married three times, the last to Dixie Carter, a star on the 1986-93 CBS sitcom Designing Women. They were married for 26 years until her death from cancer in 2010.

Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. was born on Feb. 17, 1925, in Cleveland. He was abandoned by his parents, and his grandparents sent him to military school.

He won his first acting paycheck at age 17 when he performed in the popular farce The Man Who Came to Dinner at Cleveland’s Cain Park Theater. He enrolled as a theater major at Ohio’s Denison University, and following three years in the Army, ventured to New York and studied with Uta Hagen.

In the 1950s, Holbrook acted on the CBS soap opera The Brighter Day. He won his first Emmy in 1971 for his work on the NBC drama series The Bold Ones: The Senator and took two more trophies for playing Commander Lloyd Bucher in the 1973 ABC telefilm Pueblo, about the capture of a U.S. spy ship by North Korea in 1968.

Holbrook also turned in Emmy-nominated performances in 1969 for The Bold Ones: The Lawyers; in 1972 for the ground-breaking telefilm That Certain Summer (he played a divorced San Francisco contractor whose son discovers his father is gay); and in 1977 for playing the stage manager in an adaptation of Our Town.

Holbrook showed up occasionally as Carter’s boyfriend on Designing Women (they had met on the 1981 telefilm The Killing of Randy Webster) and was Evan Evans, the father of Marilu Henner and father-in-law of Burt Reynolds, on the 1990-94 CBS comedy Evening Shade. He also played the assistant Secretary of State on NBC’s The West Wing.

As host and narrator of the Portrait of America documentary series, Holbrook received a Peabody Award and his fifth Emmy in 1989.

At one juncture, PBS wanted to develop Mark Twain Tonight! as a program but asked Holbrook to drop a section from Huckleberry Finn that included use of the N-word (it’s in the book more than 200 times). The actor refused, and the project was shelved.

“Anyone who thinks that word [being used so often] is an accident is close to being foolish,” he said in a 2012 interview. “Every time you read that word in the book it reminds you that you have to face who is racist. The finger is pointing at you. And me.”

Holbrook’s film résumé also included The Great White Hope (1970), They Only Kill Their Masters (1972), Julia (1977), The Fog (1980), Creepshow (1982), Fletch Lives (1989), The Firm (1993), Men of Honor (2000), The Majestic (2001), Purpose (2002), Shade (2003) and That Evening Sun (2009).

Survivors include his children Victoria, David and Eve.

Films

Year     Title     Role     Notes   Ref

1966    The Group       Gus Leroy                   

1968    Wild in the Streets      Senator Johnny Fergus                      

The Brotherhood        Man at Table              

1970    The People Next Door             David Hoffman                       

The Great White Hope            Al Cameron                

1972    They Only Kill Their Masters   Watkins                      

1973    Jonathan Livingston Seagull    The Elder         Uncredited voice        

Magnum Force            Lieutenant Neil Briggs                       

1974    The Girl from Petrovka           Joe                  

1976    All the President's Men           Deep Throat               

Midway           Commander Joseph Rochefort                      

1977    Rituals Harry              

Julia     Alan Campbell                        

Capricorn One             Dr. James Kelloway                

1979    Natural Enemies         Paul Steward              

1980    The Fog           Father Malone                       

The Kidnapping of the President        President Adam Scott                        

1982    Creepshow      Henry Northrup          Segment: "The Crate"            

Girls Nite Out Jim MacVey     AKA The Scaremaker

1983    The Star Chamber       Judge Benjamin Caulfield                  

1987    Wall Street      Lou Mannheim                       

1988    The Unholy      Archbishop Mosely                

1989    Fletch Lives      Hamilton "Ham" Johnson                  

1993    The Firm          Oliver Lambert                       

1996    Carried Away   Doctor Evans              

1997    Cats Don't Dance        Cranston          Voice  

Hercules          Amphitryon     Voice  

Eye of God       Sheriff Rogers             

1998    Hush    Dr. Franklin Hill                      

Walking to the Waterline       Man on the Beach                  

Judas Kiss        Senator Rupert Hornbeck                  

Rusty: A Dog's Tale     Boyd Callahan            

1999    The Florentine             Smitty             

The Bachelor   Roy O'Dell                  

2000    Waking the Dead        Isaac Green                

Men of Honor Mr. Pappy                  

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus         Ak – Master Woodsman of the World            Voice  

2001    The Majestic   Congressman Doyle               

2002    Purpose           Tom Walker               

Seventh Day    Himself            Documentary

2003    Country Music: The Spirit of America            Narrator          IMAX  

Shade The Professor             

2007    Into the Wild   Ron Franz                   

2008    Killshot            Papa               

2009    That Evening Sun        Abner Meecham                    

2010    Flying Lessons Harry Pleasant                       

2011    Good Day for It           Hector            

Water for Elephants    Old Jacob                    

2012    Lincoln             Francis Preston Blair              

Promised Land            Frank Yates                 

2013    Savannah         Judge Harden             

2014    Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey         Himself            Documentary

Planes: Fire & Rescue Mayday           Voice  

2015    Blackway         Whizzer                      

 

Television

Year     Title     Role     Notes   Ref

1954–1959      The Brighter Day         Grayling Dennis #1      Unknown episodes    

1955    Mr. Citizen       Don Gallagher             Episode: "Late for Supper"    

1966    Preview Tonight          Unknown         Episode: "The Cliff Dwellers"

The Glass Menagerie Tom Wingfield            TV movie        

1967    Mark Twain Tonight! Mark Twain     TV special       

Coronet Blue   Carey Thomas Episode: "Faces"        

1967–1968      Off to See the Wizard Narrator          Unknown episodes    

1969    The F.B.I.         Christopher Simes       Episode: "The Fraud"

The Whole World Is Watching            Chancellor Leonard Graham   TV movie        

The Name of the Game           Mayor John Adrian     Episode: "The Perfect Image"            

1970    A Clear and Present Danger    Senator Hays Stowe    TV movie        

Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color       Mitch Collins   2 episodes      

1970–1971      The Bold Ones: The Senator   Senator Hays Stowe    8 episodes      

1971    Travis Logan, D.A.       Matthew Sand            TV movie        

Suddenly Single           Larry Hackett   TV movie        

Goodbye, Raggedy Ann          Harlan Webb   TV movie        

1972    That Certain Summer Doug Salter     TV movie        

1973    Pueblo             Commander Lloyd M. Bucher             TV movie        

1974–1976      Carl Sandburg's Lincoln           Abraham Lincoln         TV miniseries; 6 episodes

1975–1976      Great Performances    Theater in America Host         2 episodes      

1976    33 Hours in the Life of God     Dr. Simon Abbott        TV movie        

1977    Our Town        Stage Manager            TV movie        

1978    The Awakening Land   Portius Wheeler          TV miniseries; 3 episodes      

1979    Murder by Natural Causes      Arthur Sinclair             TV movie        

The Legend of the Golden Gun           J. R. Swackhammer     TV movie        

When Hell Was in Session      Commander Jeremiah Denton           TV movie        

1980    Off the Minnesota Strip          Bud Johansen TV movie        

1981    The Killing of Randy Webster John Webster TV movie        

1983–1988      Portrait of America     Himself            8 episodes      

1984    Celebrity          Calvin Sledge   3 episodes      

George Washington    John Adams     TV miniseries; 3 episodes      

The Three Wishes of Billy Grier          Grandpa Grier             TV movie        

1985    North and South         Abraham Lincoln         Episode #1.6   

Behind Enemy Lines    Col. Calvin Turner        TV movie        

1986    Under Siege     President Maxwell Monroe    TV movie        

Dress Gray       General Charles Hedges          TV miniseries, 2 episodes      

North and South: Book II        Abraham Lincoln         TV miniseries, 5 episodes      

1986–1989      Designing Women       Reese Watson             9 episodes      

1987    Plaza Suite       Sam Nash        TV movie        

1988    The Fortunate Pilgrim Dr. Andrew McKay      TV miniseries, 3 episodes      

I'll Be Home for Christmas      Joseph Bundy TV movie        

Emma: Queen of the South Seas        Jonas Coe        2 episodes      

1989    Day One          General George Marshall       TV movie        

Sorry, Wrong Number            Jim Coltrane    TV movie        

1990    A Killing in a Small Town         Dr. Beardsley   TV movie        

1990–1994      Evening Shade             Evan Evans      80 episodes    

1993    Bonds of Love Jim Smith         TV movie        

1994    A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lifestyle      William McKenzie       TV movie        

A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Grimacing Governor         Wild Bill McKenzie      TV movie        

1995    A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester    Wild Bill McKenzie      TV movie        

She Stood Alone: The Tailhook Scandal         Adm. Kelso      TV movie        

1996    Innocent Victims         Bob Hennis      TV movie        

1997    Operation Delta Force            Admiral Henshaw        TV movie        

All the Winters That Have Been          Uncle Ren Corvin        TV movie        

The Third Twin            Pete     TV movie        

1998    Beauty             Alexander Miller         TV movie        

My Own Country         Lloyd Flanders             TV movie        

1999    A Place Apart Narrator          TV movie        

2000    The Outer Limits         Justice Oliver Harbison           2 episodes      

Family Law      Judge Richard Lloyd    Episode: "One Mistake"

2001    Haven Harold L. Ickes             TV movie        

The Legend of the Three Trees           Narrator          TV movie        

2001–2002      The West Wing           Assistant Secretary of State Albie Duncan     2 episodes      

2002    Becker Mr. Humphries            Episode: "And the Heartbeat Goes On"        

2003    Good Morning, Miami            Jim Templeton            2 episodes

The Street Lawyer       Arthur Jacobs TV movie        

2005    Hope & Faith   Edward Shanowski      Episode: "A Room of One's Own"      

2006    The Sopranos John Schwinn Episode: "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh"        

NCIS     Mickey Stokes             Episode: "Escaped"    

2008    ER        Walter Perkins            2 episodes      

2009    Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas    Dean Davis Winters    TV movie        

2010,

2014    Sons of Anarchy          Nate Madock 5 episodes      

2010–2011      The Event        James Dempsey          10 episodes    

2013    Monday Mornings      Dr. Arvin Wayne          Episode: "The Legend and the Fall"   

Rectify             Rutherford Gaines      Episode: "Modern Times"

2017    Bones Red Hudmore Episode: "The New Tricks in the Old Dogs"

An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story         Reinhold Niebuhr (voice)        TV movie        

Grey's Anatomy          Dr. Lewis Klatch          Episode: "'Till I Hear It from You"      

Hawaii Five-0 Leonard Patterson      Episode: "Waimaka 'ele'ele"