Harold Rowe "Hal" Holbrook, Jr.
(born February 17, 1925) is an American actor. His television roles include Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 TV series Lincoln
, Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator
and Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo
. He is also known for his role in the 2007 film Into the Wild
, for which he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award. He has also done a one man show as Mark Twain. He is married to actress Dixie Carter.
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HAL HOLBROOK: MARK TWAIN TONIGHT TICKETS
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Early life
Holbrook was born in
Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Aileen (
née Davenport), a
vaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook, Sr.
[1] He was raised in
South Weymouth, Massachusetts. Holbrook 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
for which he won both a
Tony and a
Drama Desk Award.
[2] Holbrook served in the US Army in
World War II and was stationed in
Newfoundland, where he performed in little theatre, including the play
Madam Precious
.
Career
According to
Playbill
, Holbrook's first solo performance as Twain was at
Lock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania in 1954.
Ed Sullivan saw him and gave Holbrook his first national exposure on his
February 12,
1956 show. Holbrook was also a member of the Valley Players (1941-1962), a summer stock theater company based in
Holyoke, Massachusetts. He was a member of the cast for several years and performed
Mark Twain Tonight
as the 1957 season opener.
[3] The
State Department even sent him on a European tour, which included pioneering appearances behind the
Iron Curtain. In 1959, Holbrook first played the role
Off-Broadway.
Columbia Records recorded an
LP of excerpts from the show.
Hal did a special production for the New York World's Fair (1964, 1965) for the Bell Telephone Pavilion. Joe Mielziner conceived of an innovative AV experience ride experience and utilizing Hal's acting talents on 65 different action screens for "The Ride Of Communications" with the movie itself known as "From Drumbeats to Telstar".
In 1967,
Mark Twain Tonight
was presented on television by
CBS and
Xerox, and Holbrook received an
Emmy for his performance. Holbrook's Twain first played on Broadway in 1966, and again in 1977 and 2005; Holbrook was at least 80 years old during his most recent Broadway run, older (for the first time) than the character he was portraying. Holbrook won a
Tony Award for the performance in 1966.
Mark Twain Tonight
has repeatedly toured across the country in what s of {{MONTHNAME 2005
[] has amounted to over 2000 performances. In 1964, Holbrook played the role of the Major in the original production of
Arthur Miller's
Incident at Vichy
. 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.
Holbrook co-starred with
Martin Sheen in the controversial and acclaimed 1972
television movie That Certain Summer
said to be the first television movie to portray homosexuality in a sympathetic, non-judgemental light. In 1976, Holbrook won further acclaim for his portrayal of
Abraham Lincoln in a series of television specials based on
Carl Sandburg's acclaimed biography. He has also starred in many films and TV programs. He won an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Dramatic Series in the 1970 TV series, "The Bold Ones: The Senator".
In 1979 he starred, with
Katharine Ross,
Barry Bostwick, and
Richard Anderson in the made-for-TV movie, "
Murder by Natural Causes".
Early in his career he worked on stage and in a television soap opera,
The Brighter Day
. Holbrook 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
. More recently, Holbrook appeared as a featured guest star in a 2006 episode of the
HBO series
The Sopranos
and the
NCIS
episode "Escaped".
Holbrook has appeared in at least six movies in which he is part of a conspiracy:
Fletch Lives
,
Magnum Force
,
The Star Chamber
,
Capricorn One
,
All the President's Men
, and
The Firm
.
Holbrook appeared on
Fisher Investments' infomercials.
In 2000 he appeared in
Men of Honor where he portrayed a racist and hypocritical officer who endlessly tries to fail an African-American diver trainee.
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. This renders Holbrook, at age 82, the oldest nominee in
Academy Award history in the Best Supporting Actor category. On
December 20,
2007, Holbrook was nominated for a
Screen Actors Guild Award for his work in the film.
[4] In late August 2007 through mid-September he starred as the narrator in the
Hartford Stage production of
Thornton Wilder's
Our Town
.
Holbrook's most recent film is
That Evening Sun
, which he filmed on location with his wife
Dixie Carter in East Tennessee in the summer of 2008. The film was produced by
Dogwood Entertainment (a subsidiary of
DoubleJay Creative) and is based on a short story by
William Gay.
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.
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."
[5] 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.
[6]
Filmography
- The Group
(1966)
- Wild in the Streets
(1968)
- They Only Kill Their Masters
(1972)
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull
(1973) (voice)
- Magnum Force
(1973)
- All the President's Men
(1976)
- Midway
(1976)
- Julia
(1977)
- Capricorn One
(1978)
- The Awakening Land
(1978) (T.V.)
- The Fog
(1979)
- When Hell Was in Session
(1979) (T.V.)
- The Kidnapping of the President
(1980)
- Creepshow
(1982)
- The Star Chamber
(1983)
- Girls Night Out
(1983)
- North and South Book I
(1985)(T.V.)
- North and South Book II
(1986)(T.V.)
- Wall Street
(1987)
- The Unholy
(1988)
- Fletch Lives
(1989)
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- Evening Shade
(1990 - 1994)(T.V. Series)
- The Firm
(1993)
- Innocent Victims
(1996)
- Eye of God
(1997)
- Cats Don't Dance
(1997) (voice)
- Hercules
(1997) (voice)
- Hush
(1998)
- Walking to the Waterline
(1998)
- The Bachelor
(1999)
- Waking the Dead
(2000)
- Men of Honor
(2000)
- The Majestic
(2001)
- The West Wing
(2001, 2002)
- The Seventh Day
(2002)
- Country Music: The Spirit of America
(2003, IMAX)
- Shade
(2003)
- The Sopranos
(2006)
- NCIS
(2006)
- Into the Wild
(2007)
- ER
(2008)
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Awards
Academy Awards
- (2008) Nominated - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role / Into the Wild
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards
- (2008) Nominated - Best Supporting Actor / Into the Wild
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
- (2007) Nominated - Best Supporting Actor / Into the Wild
Online Film Critics Society Awards
- (2008) Nominated - Best Supporting Actor / Into the Wild
Screen Actors Guild Awards
- (2008) Nominated - Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role / Into the Wild
Primetime Emmy Awards
- Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie -
(1967) Nominated -
Mark Twain Tonight!
(1971) Nominated -
A Clear and Present Danger
(1973) Nominated -
That Certain Summer
(1974) Won -
Pueblo
(1976) Won -
Sandburg's Lincoln
(1978) Nominated -
The Awakening Land
(1969) Nominated -
The Whole World is Watching
- Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama or Comedy Special
(1978) Nominated -
Our Town
- Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series
(1971) Won -
The Bold Ones: The Senator
- Outstanding Informational Series
(1988) Nominated -
Portrait of America
(segment: New York City)
- Outstanding Performance in Informational Programing
(1989) Won -
Portrait of America
(segment: Alaska)
- Actor of the Year (Retired category)
(1974) Won -
Pueblo