Harold Rowe "Hal" Holbrook, Jr. (born February 17, 1925) is an American film and stage actor. Holbrook initially gained notoriety for a one-man stage show he developed while in college in 1954, performing as Mark Twain.[1][2][3]
He made his film debut in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). He later gained international fame for his performance as Deep Throat in the 1976 film All the President's Men. He was known for his role as Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 television series Lincoln. He has also appeared in such other films as Julia (1977), The Fog (1980), Creepshow (1982), The Firm (1993) and Men of Honor (2000).[2]
Holbrook's role in Into the Wild (2007) earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.[4] In his later career, Holbrook had a recurring role on the FX series Sons of Anarchy and has appeared as Francis Preston Blair in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012).[3]
Holbrook has won three Primetime Emmy Awards (1971, 1974, 1976) and a Tony Award in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain.[4]
Contents
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Early life 1
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Career 2
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Personal life 3
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Filmography 4
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Awards and nominations 5
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References 6
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Further reading 7
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External links 8
Early life
Holbrook was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Aileen (Davenport) Holbrook (1905-1987), a vaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook, Sr (1902-1982).[1] After being abandoned by his parents at age two, he and his two sisters were raised by his paternal grandparents first in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, and then in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood.[2]
He graduated from the Culver Academies and Denison University, where an honors project about Mark Twain led him to develop the one-man show for which he is best known, a series of performances called Mark Twain Tonight.[5] Holbrook served in the United States Army in World War II and was stationed in Newfoundland, where he performed in theatre productions such as the play Madam Precious.[2]
Career
According to Playbill, Holbrook's first solo performance as Twain was at Lock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania in 1954.[2] Ed Sullivan saw him and gave Holbrook his first national exposure on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 12, 1956.[2] Holbrook was also a member of the Valley Players (1941–1962), a summer stock theater company based in Holyoke, Massachusetts, which performed at Mountain Park Casino Playhouse at Mountain Park.[6] He was a member of the cast for several years and performed Mark Twain Tonight as the 1957 season opener.[6] The State Department even sent him on a European tour, which included pioneering appearances behind the Iron Curtain.[2] In 1959, Holbrook first played the role off-Broadway.[2] Columbia Records recorded an LP of excerpts from the show.[2]
Hal Holbrook in The Brighter Day Scene, August 1954
Holbrook performed in a special production for the New York World's Fair (1964, 1965) for the Bell Telephone Pavilion.[7] Jo Mielziner created an innovative audio-visual ride experience and used Hal's acting talents on 65 different action screens for "The Ride Of Communications" with the movie itself known as From Drumbeats to Telstar.[7]
In 1967, Mark Twain Tonight was presented on television by CBS and Xerox, and Holbrook received an Emmy for his performance.[2] Holbrook's Twain first played on Broadway in 1966, and again in 1977 and 2005; Holbrook was 80 years old during his most recent Broadway run, older (for the first time) than the character he was portraying.[2] Holbrook won a Tony Award for the performance in 1966.[2] Mark Twain Tonight has repeatedly toured the country in what, as of 2005, has amounted to over 2000 performances. He has portrayed Twain longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens did.[8]
In 1964, Holbrook played the role of the Major in the original production of Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy.[9] In 1968, he was one of the replacements for Richard Kiley in the original Broadway production of Man of La Mancha, although he had limited singing ability.[9]
Holbrook co-starred with Martin Sheen in the controversial and acclaimed 1972 television movie That Certain Summer.[2] In 1973, Holbrook appeared as Lieutenant Neil Briggs, the boss and rival of Detective Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in Magnum Force, an "obsessively neat and prim fanatic" who supports the obliteration of San Francisco's criminals and who is the leader of a rogue group of vigilante officers.[10][11] In 1976, Holbrook won acclaim for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in a series of television specials based on Carl Sandburg's acclaimed biography.[2] He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the 1970 series The Bold Ones: The Senator.[2] In 1979, he starred with Katharine Ross, Barry Bostwick, and Richard Anderson in the made-for-TV movie Murder by Natural Causes.[1] Holbrook also had a major role on the sitcom Evening Shade throughout its entire run.[1]
Early in his career, Holbrook worked onstage and in a television soap opera, The Brighter Day.[2] He is also famous for his role as the enigmatic Deep Throat (whose identity was unknown at the time) in the film All the President's Men.[12] Holbrook was the narrator on the Ken Burns documentary Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery in 1997.[2]
In 1999, Holbrook was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.[13]
Later career
In 2000, Holbrook appeared in Men of Honor, where he portrayed a racist and hypocritical officer who endlessly tries to fail an African-American diver trainee.[14]
Holbrook in December 2009
He appeared in Sean Penn's critically acclaimed film Into the Wild (2007) and received an Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role at the 80th Academy Awards.[4] This renders Holbrook, at age 82, the oldest nominee in Academy Award history in the Best Supporting Actor category.[4] On December 20, 2007, Holbrook was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for his work in the film.[4] In late August through mid-September 2007, he starred as the narrator in the Hartford Stage production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, a role he had once played on television.[4]
Holbrook appeared with wife Dixie Carter in That Evening Sun, filmed in East Tennessee in the summer of 2008.[15] The film was produced by Dogwood Entertainment.[15] It is based on a short story by William Gay.[15] That Evening Sun premiered in March 2009 at South By Southwest, where it received the Audience Award for Narrative Feature and a special Jury Prize for Ensemble Cast.[15] Joe Leydon of Variety hailed Hollbrook's performance in the film as a "career-highlight star turn as an irascible octogenarian farmer who will not go gentle into that good night."[15] That Evening Sun also was screened at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival, where Holbrook was honored with a special Lifetime Achievement Award, and the film itself received another Audience Award.[16]
Holbrook appeared as a featured guest star in a 2006 episode of the HBO series The Sopranos and the NCIS episode "Escaped".[2] On April 22, 2010, Holbrook signed on to portray Katey Sagal's character's father on the FX original series Sons of Anarchy for a four-episode arc in their third season, as well as appearing in additional fifth episode in the final season.[17] He also had a multiple-episode arc on The Event, an American television series on NBC, appearing in the 2010–2011 season.[1]
In 2011, Holbrook appeared in Water for Elephants.[18] In 2012, Steven Spielberg casted Holbrook to play Francis Preston Blair in Lincoln.[3] His recent films are Gus Van Sant's Promised Land (2012)[19] and the animated film Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014).[20]
Personal life
Holbrook and Dixie Carter at the 41st Emmy Awards, 1990
Holbrook has been married three times and has three children. He married Ruby Holbrook on September 22, 1945, and they had two children, Victoria Holbrook and David Holbrook.[2] They divorced in 1965, and on December 28, 1966, he married Carol Eve Rossen. They had one child, Eve Holbrook, and they divorced on June 14, 1983.[2]
He married Dixie Carter on May 27, 1984.[2] Architect Hoyte Johnson of Atlanta redesigned Carter's family home and created an environment that the couple shared with family and friends.[21] Holbrook has said that the home has the "feel" of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, and that there is no other place to which he feels so ideally suited.[21] Holbrook and Carter remained married until her death on April 10, 2010.[22] Holbrook had a recurring role on his wife's hit sitcom Designing Women, appearing in nine episodes between 1986 and 1989 as Carter's on-screen significant other.[2]
Holbrook grew to love Dixie's home in McLemoresville, Tennessee, and continues to retreat there from the busy life on the road and in Hollywood. The local community responded by building the Dixie Theatre for Performing Arts in nearby Huntington, Tennessee, which features the Hal Holbrook Auditorium.[21]
Holbrook is a converted-Christian, even though he tends to criticize the Bible at times.[23] He is a registered Independent, but tends to lean more liberal.[24] Holbrook has criticized the Republican Party since Barack Obama took office.[24]
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Academy Awards
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Online Film Critics Society Awards
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Primetime Emmy Awards
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Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama or Comedy Special
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Outstanding Informational Series
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(1988) Nominated - Portrait of America (segment: New York City)[25]
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Outstanding Performance in Informational Programing
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(1989) Won - Portrait of America (segment: Alaska)[25]
Tony Awards
References
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^ a b c d e "Hal Holbrook Biography (1925-)". Film Reference.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "Hal Holbrook". Biography.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ a b c "Hal Holbrook is always up for challenging fare". LA Times.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ a b c d e f "Veteran actor Hal Holbrook's loving his Oscar nod". CNN.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ "Hal Holbrook at the Internet Broadway Database". Awards.
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^ a b . HPLA2007.527"Valley Players Collection (1941-1993)"Holyoke History Room & Archives . Holyokehistory.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ a b "New York World's Fair '64". Westland.net. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ Malia Wollan (January 24, 2011). "Mark Twain. Now a Career for the Mustachioed". New York Times.
...has played Twain going on 57 years, longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens did.
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^ a b "Hal Holbrook". Master Works Broadway.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ Baker, Brian (9 April 2006). Masculinity in Fiction and Film: Representing Men in Popular Genres, 1945-2000. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 104.
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^ Brunsdale, Mitzi M. (26 July 2010). Icons of Mystery and Crime Detection: From Sleuths to Superheroes. ABC-CLIO. p. 368.
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^ "Deep Throat is W. Mark Felt. And Hal Holbrook. And Kirsten Dunst. And . . .". New York Magazine.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ "On Stage: New class of theater hall of famers".
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^ "Men of Honor (2000)". The New York Times.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ a b c d e "That Evening Sun". Variety. Retrieved March 26, 2009.
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^ "Nashville Film Festival". PR Web.com. Retrieved April 24, 2009.
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^ "Hal Holbrook Joins Sons of Anarchy". Cinemablend.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ "Hal Holbrook Totally Owns the "Water for Elephants" Trailer". NBC New York.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ Gerhardt, Tina (31 December 2012). "Matt Damon Exposes Fracking in Promised Land".
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^ Planes: Fire & Rescue' Interview with Hal Holbrook"'". Movie Web.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ a b c "Hal & Dixie". Carroll County Chamber.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
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^ Biography for Hal Holbrook at the Internet Movie Database
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^ "Hal Holbrook, bringing 'Mark Twain' to PAC, is ready to vent". Postcresent.com. Retrieved May 10, 2015.
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^ a b "Hal Holbrook Speaks Out Against Republican Party Leaders".
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^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r "Hal Holbrook -Awards". IMDB.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
Further reading
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Holbrook, Hal. (1959). Mark Twain Tonight! An Actor's Portrait. New York: Ives Washburn.
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Young, Jordan R. (1989). Acting Solo: The Art of One-Person Shows. Beverly Hills: Past Times Publishing Co.
External links
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