Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show, titledMark Twain Tonight!, that he developed while studying atDenison University. He won theTony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain.[1] He continued to perform his signature role for more than 60 years, retiring the show in 2017 due to his failing health. Throughout his career, he also won fivePrimetime Emmy Awards for his work on television and was nominated for anAcademy Award for his work in film.[2]
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. was born on February 17, 1925, inCleveland, Ohio, the son of Aileen (née Davenport) Holbrook (1905–1987), avaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook Sr. (1902–1982).[9]
Holbrook and his two elder sisters were abandoned by their parents when he was two years old.[10] The three children were raised by their paternal grandparents, first inWeymouth, Massachusetts, and later in the Cleveland suburb ofLakewood, Ohio.[10] He graduated from Culver Military Academy (now part of theCulver Academies) and then fromDenison University, where an honors project aboutMark Twain led him to develop theone-man show for which he became best known, a series of performances titledMark Twain Tonight!.[11] He also studied acting atHB Studio in New York City.[12]
Holbrook's first solo performance as Twain was atLock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania in 1954.Ed Sullivan saw him and gave 30-year-old Holbrook his first national exposure onThe Ed Sullivan Show on February 12, 1956, five days before his 31st birthday.[14] Holbrook was also a member of the Valley Players (1941–1962), a summer-stock theater company based inHolyoke, Massachusetts, which performed at Mountain Park Casino Playhouse at Mountain Park.[15] He joinedThe Lambs Club in 1955, where he began developing his one-man show.[10] He was a member of the cast for several years and performedMark Twain Tonight! as the 1957 season opener.[15] TheState Department even sent him on a European tour, which included pioneering appearances behind theIron Curtain.[10]
Holbrook performed in a special production for the1964/1965 New York World's Fair for the Bell Telephone Pavilion. Jo Mielziner created an innovative audio-visual ride experience and used Holbrook's acting talents on 65 different action screens for "The Ride of Communications" with the movie itself known asFrom Drumbeats to Telstar.[16]
In 1967,Mark Twain Tonight! was presented on television byCBS andXerox, and Holbrook received anEmmy for his performance.[3] Holbrook's Twain first played on Broadway in 1966, and again in 1977 and 2005; Holbrook was 80 years of age during his final Broadway run, older (for the first time) than the character he was portraying.[3][17] Holbrook won a Tony Award for the performance in 1966.[3] Until he retired in 2017, aged 92,Mark Twain Tonight! toured the country, which amounted to over 2,100 performances. This included one of his first performances in the spring of 1962, when he was 37, and one of his last in September 2014 (when he was 89), at his high-schoolalma mater in Indiana.[18]
Holbrook co-starred withMartin Sheen in the controversial and acclaimed 1972 television filmThat Certain Summer.[3] Around that same year, Holbrook appeared in a televisionpublic service announcement (PSA) commissioned by theAd Council; aimed at the parents of college students planning tostudy abroad, the PSA sees Holbrook in a jail cell, warning viewers to inform their children of the penalties for drug abuse in countries outside the US.[21][22] In 1973, Holbrook appeared as Lieutenant Neil Briggs, the boss and rival of Detective"Dirty" Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) inMagnum Force, an "obsessively neat and prim fanatic" who supports the obliteration ofSan Francisco's criminals and who is the leader of a rogue group of vigilante officers.[23][24]
From 1986 to 1989, Holbrook had a recurring role as Reese Watson onDesigning Women, opposite his wifeDixie Carter.[29] Over a short period between 1988 and 1990, Holbrook directed four episodes of the series.[3] Holbrook also had a major role on the sitcomEvening Shade throughout its entire run.[30]Early on in his career, Holbrook worked onstage and in a television soap opera,The Brighter Day.[3]
Holbrook's film roles during the 1980s and 1990s include a priest inThe Fog (1980), a professor inCreepshow (1982), senior stock broker inWall Street (1987), a neighborly lawyer inFletch Lives (1989), senior partner of a corrupt law firm inThe Firm (1993), and the voice ofAmphitryon, the adoptive father of Hercules, in the Disney animated filmHercules (1997).
In 1999, Holbrook was inducted into theAmerican Theatre Hall of Fame.[31] A year later, Holbrook appeared inMen of Honor, where he portrayed a racist and hypocritical officer who endlessly tries to fail an African-American diver trainee.[32] Holbrook played the role of Albie Duncan in two episodes ofThe West Wing.[33]
He appeared as the host in the documentaryThe Seventh Day: Revelations From The Lost Pages of History (2005).[34]
Holbrook appeared with wife Dixie Carter inThat Evening Sun, filmed in East Tennessee in the summer of 2008, when he was 83.[5] The film, produced by Dogwood Entertainment,[5] is based on a short story byWilliam Gay.That Evening Sun premiered in March 2009 (when Holbrook was 84) atSouth By Southwest, where it received the Audience Award for Narrative Feature and a special Jury Prize for Ensemble Cast.[5]Joe Leydon ofVariety 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".[5]That Evening Sun also was screened at the 2009Nashville Film Festival, where Holbrook was honored with a special Lifetime Achievement Award, and the film itself received another Audience Award.[35]
Holbrook appeared as a featured guest star in a 2006 episode of theHBO seriesThe Sopranos and theNCIS episode "Escaped".[3] On April 22, 2010, aged 85, Holbrook signed on to portrayKatey Sagal's character's father on theFX original seriesSons of Anarchy for a four-episode arc in their third season, as well as appearing in additional fifth episode in the final season.[36] He also had a multiple-episode arc onThe Event, an American television series onNBC, appearing in the 2010–2011 season.[37]
In September 2017, after six decades of playing the role of Mark Twain, Holbrook, then 92, announced his retirement fromMark Twain Tonight![18] Holbrook indicated that he would like to continue working on movies and television.[18]
Holbrook was married three times and had three children. He married a Newfoundlander, Ruby Elaine Johnston, in 1945 and they had two children.[3] They divorced in 1965. In 1966, he married Carol Eve Rossen.[44] They had one child and they divorced in 1983.[3]
Holbrook married actress and singerDixie Carter in 1984 and the couple remained married until Carter's death fromendometrial cancer on April 10, 2010.[45] Holbrook appeared as a recurring character on Carter's TV series,Designing Women.[29]
Holbrook said of his home inMcLemoresville,Tennessee, that it had the "feel" of theMark Twain House inHartford, Connecticut, and that there was no other place to which he felt so ideally suited.[46] He also had a residence inBeverly Hills, California.[10] Holbrook had a recurring role on his wife's hit sitcomDesigning Women, appearing in nine episodes between 1986 and 1989 as Carter's on-screen significant other.[3] In 2011, Holbrook's memoir,Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain, was published byFarrar, Straus and Giroux.[47]
In October 2016, aged 91, Holbrook wrote a letter toThe New York Times defending actor directorNate Parker over his alleged 1999 rape of a woman and Parker's controversial filmThe Birth of a Nation.[48] He urged others to "move on" from Parker's past and to view the film, which was "an exceptional piece of artistry and a vital portrait of our American experience".[48]
Holbrook occasionally criticized the politicization of religion.[49] He was a registeredindependent, but leaned towards the liberal end of the U.S. political spectrum.[50] He criticized theRepublican Party whileBarack Obama was in office.[50]
In 2016, he castigated then-Republican candidateDonald Trump for not having "the maturity to run the country".[14] Holbrook praised SenatorBernie Sanders as the only politician who does not "say what they think might get them elected" and praised his honesty.[51]
Holbrook died at his home in Beverly Hills on January 23, 2021, at age 95; no cause was made public.[52] He was buried in McLemoresville Cemetery in McLemoresville, Tennessee, alongside his wife, Dixie Carter.[53]
In 2003, PresidentGeorge W. Bush honored Holbrook with aNational Humanities Medal for "charming audiences with the wit and wisdom of Mark Twain as Twain's outlook never fails to give Holbrook a good show to put on".[8]
The local community of McLemoresville, hometown of his wife Dixie Carter, constructed the Dixie Theatre for Performing Arts in nearbyHuntingdon, Tennessee, which features the Hal Holbrook Auditorium.[46] Upon his retirement from his Mark Twain persona, theHuffPost wrote that Holbrook was "the man who has done more to keep Mark Twain on people's minds than anyone else".[54]
^Malia Wollan (January 24, 2011)."Mark Twain. Now a Career for the Mustachioed".The New York Times.Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. RetrievedFebruary 24, 2017....has played Twain going on 57 years, longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens did.
Holbrook, Hal (1959).Mark Twain Tonight: An Actor's Portrait. New York: Ives Washburn.ISBN978-0-886902-72-8.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Young, Jordan R. (1989).Acting solo: the art of one-man shows. Beverly Hills: Moonstone Press.ISBN978-0-940410-85-5.
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