Hal Holbrook, an award-winning actor acclaimed for his individual interpretation of American literary legend Mark Twain and whose work in cinema included portraying the mysterious “Deep Throat” in “All the President’s Men”, died at the age of 95, in the New York Times reported Tuesday. -market.
Holbrook died on January 23 at his home in Beverly Hills, California, the New York Times reported. He said his death was confirmed Monday night by his assistant, Joyce Cohen.
In 2008, at age 82, Holbrook became the oldest male artist to be nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in “Into the Wild”.
But it was his recreation of the revered novelist, comedian and social critic in “Mark Twain Tonight” that brought Holbrook his greatest fame. This earned him a Tony award for his performance on Broadway in 1966 and the first of his 10 Emmy nominations in 1967.
Holbrook was still a young man in the mid-1950s when he played the role of Twain, who died in 1910 at the age of 75, and his first major exposure came when he took the role on the popular “The Ed Sullivan Show”.
He performed for former President Dwight Eisenhower and on an international tour sponsored by the US Department of State. He continued his act of Twain well into his 90s.
“Mark Twain is something precious to me. He is my right hand throughout my life,” Holbrook told NPR in 2007.
Holbrook said he took on Twain’s personality after trying to find a figure to portray in a one-man play. He read a few pages of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and said he felt a connection.
He developed the act in New York nightclubs and took it to Broadway for the first time in 1959.
With make-up, wig, thick white mustache, white suit and a cigar, Holbrook had a striking resemblance to the author at the age of 70, when he delivered a monologue from Twain’s writings and speeches on subjects ranging from religion to politics and human frailties . He said he had performed the show every year since then and in every state, as well as around the world.
Tall, with an air of dignified reserve, Holbrook also made distinct portraits of Abraham Lincoln, winning an Emmy for lead actor in a limited series in 1976 for specials based on the biography of Carl Sandburg’s president.
He also won the Emmy for a television special in the role of Captain Lloyd Bucher in “Pueblo” in 1973 and as a lead actor in a dramatic series in 1970 in the series “The Bold Ones: The Senator”.
Other important roles were as “the main” in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s “Incident at Vichy”, as Martin Sheen’s partner in “That Certain Summer”, the first TV movie to give a sympathetic portrait of homosexuality, and as “Deep Throat,” the main source of the Watergate scandal that toppled Richard Nixon’s presidency, in the 1976 film “All Men of the President”.
Holbrook was born in Cleveland on February 17, 1925 and his mother was a vaudeville dancer. After serving in the Army in Newfoundland during World War II, Holbrook attended Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where his senior honor project was in Twain.
He toured small towns like Twain, then took the show off Broadway, where it was a success that launched his career. Holbrook made about 2,000 appearances as Twain.
His other films include “The Group” in 1966, “Wild in the Streets” in 1968, “Magnum Force” in 1973, “The Star Chamber” and “Wall Street” in 1987, “The Firm” in 1993, “That Evening Sun “in 2009 with wife Dixie Carter and” Lincoln “by Steven Spielberg in 2012.
Holbrook had a recurring role with Carter, a star on the “Designing Women” sitcom, a role in the ring, who died in April 2010 at the age of 70.