Emmy winner and Tony Hal Holbrook, an actor best known for his role as Mark Twain, who played for decades in solo shows, died on January 23. He was 95 years old.
Holbrook’s personal assistant, Joyce Cohen, confirmed her death to the New York Times on Monday night.
Holbrook played the American novelist on a solo show called “Mark Twain Tonight!” which he directed and for which he won the best actor Tony in 1966. He returned to Broadway with the show in 1977 and 2005 and appeared in it more than 2,200 times (in 2010) in legitimate locations across the country. He started doing the show in 1954.
He received an Emmy nomination for a TV adaptation of “Mark Twain Tonight!” in 1967, the first of several nominees. He won four Emmy awards.
He also received an Oscar nomination for a supporting actor for his role in the movie “Into the Wild” in 2008. At the time of the nomination, Holbrook, 82, was the oldest artist to receive such recognition.
Holbrook’s harsh voice and appearance lent itself to historical portraits and other parts that required seriousness. In fact, he also played Abraham Lincoln, winning an Emmy in 1976 for the NBC miniseries “Lincoln” and reprising the role in the ABC miniseries “North and South” in 1985 and his sequel the following year. In addition, he won his first Emmy, in 1970, for his role as the title character in the brief but highly regarded series “The Bold Ones: The Senator”. He played the commander-in-chief in the 1980 film “The kidnapping of the president”; a senior judge attempted vigilant justice in “The Star Chamber”; and John Adams in the 1984 miniseries “George Washington”. Much later, he played the assistant secretary of state in some episodes of “The West Wing” and, more recently, played a conservative Republican congressman in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and a judge in the 2013 historical drama “Savannah”.
In 1978, he was nominated for an Emmy for his role in the TV adaptation of “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder as the Stage Manager, another role with which he is strongly associated.
Previously, he was nominated for an Emmy for a notable role as the man who reveals his homosexuality to his son, played by Martin Sheen, on ABC’s 1972 ABC telepathic “That Certain Summer”.
He reappeared on Linda Bloodworth’s late ’80s series, “Designing Women”, as his wife’s real-life boyfriend, Dixie Carter; his character on that show was killed so he could take on a major role in another CBS-Bloodworth effort, starring Burt Reynolds “Evening Shade”, in which he played Reynolds’ irascible father-in-law. He appeared in 79 episodes of the 1990-94 show.
Holbrook also directed four episodes of “Designing Women”.
In 2006, the actor participated in “The Sopranos” as a terminal patient who conveys some wisdom to the hospitalized Tony Soprano.
Holbrook’s inimitable voice, full of world-weary integrity, was inevitably appealing to documentary filmmakers and film directors who demanded narration or voiceover. He narrated documents like “The Might Mississippi” and “The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine” and films including “Water for Elephants” from 2011. He won an Emmy in 1989 for narrating the “Alaska” segment of the “Portrait” documentary series of America ”.
The actor also impressed deeply in the cinema, playing Deep Throat in “All the President’s Men” – he was the one who sang the famous words “Follow the money!”; a power-hungry police lieutenant in Dirty Harry’s “Magnum Force”; and, in a brief and underestimated performance, a broker warning about the dangers of ethical lapses on Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”.
Harold Rowe “Hal” Holbrook, Jr. was born in Cleveland; his mother was a vaudeville dancer. He was raised in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, and graduated from Denison U., Ohio, where an honor project on Twain led him to develop “Mark Twain Tonight”. Serving in the Army in World War II, Holbrook was stationed in Newfoundland, where he served in theatrical productions, including the play “Madam Precious”.
Ed Sullivan saw him perform “Mark Twain Tonight” and gave the young actor his first national show on his television show in February 1956.
Holbrook was a member of the legitimate summer stock troupe The Valley Players, based in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and opened his 1957 season with a performance by “Mark Twain Tonight”. The State Department sent him on a tour of Europe that included appearances behind the Iron Curtain, and Holbrook first played the role Off Broadway in 1959. Columbia Records recorded an album with excerpts from the show.
On Broadway, Holbrook played the role of Major in Arthur Miller’s original production of “Incident at Vichy” in 1964. In 1968, he was a replacement for Richard Kiley in the original Broadway production of “Man of La Mancha”, although limited skill as a singer.
When Holbrook approached his 80s, he remained a busy actor, including appearances in several episodes on FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” and NBC’s “The Event”. In 2011 he also participated in an independent film, the thriller “Good Day for It”, in which he was intimately involved, and appeared as a science teacher who knows the truth in Gus Van Sant’s anti-fracture film “Promised Land”. “
Holbrook’s memoir, “Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain”, was published in September 2011.
In 2014, Holbrook was the subject of the documentary “Holbrook / Twain: An American Odyssey”, directed by Scott Teems, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and portrayed Holbrook’s career playing Twain. Holbrook appeared as Red Hudmore in the last season of “Bones” in 2017, and appeared in an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Hawaii Five-0” in the same year. In September 2017, Holbrook announced his retirement from “Mark Twain Tonight”.
Holbrook has been married three times. He and Carter were married in 1984 and remained together until her death in 2010.
He leaves his three children and two stepdaughters, as well as two grandchildren and two stepchildren.