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Biography
BLP IMDB refimprove|date=January 2012Infobox person|image = Hal Holbrook LF.jpg|caption = Holbrook at the Hollywood Life Magazine Breakthrough Awards, 2007|birthname = Harold Rowe Holbrook, Jr.|birth_date = birth date and age|mf=y|1925|2|17||birth_place = Cleveland, Ohio , U.S.|nationality = United States|American |education = Culver Academies |alma_mater = Denison University |residence = Beverly Hills, California , McLemoresville, Tennessee |home_town = Weymouth, Massachusetts|South Weymouth, Massachusetts |television = Lincoln, The Bold Ones: The Senator |notable_works = Mark Twain Tonight , Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild , The Fog , '' All the President's Men (film)|All the President's Men , Water for Elephants (film)|Water for Elephants , Fletch Lives , Magnum Force , The Star Chamber , Capricorn One , The Firm (1993 film)|The Firm |known_for = Abraham Lincoln , Mark Twain |occupation = Actor|yearsactive = 1954–present|spouse = Ruby Holbrook (m. 1945–65) Carol Eve Rossen (m. 1966–79) Dixie Carter (m. 1984–2010; her death)|children = 6|awards = Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Primetime Emmy Award|signature = Harold Rowe "Hal" Holbrook, Jr. (born February 17, 1925) is an United States|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 (TV Film)|Pueblo . He is also known for his role in the 2007 film Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild , for which he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award . He has also performed a one-man show as Mark Twain since 1954.
Early life
Holbrook was born in Cleveland, Ohio , the son of Aileen Davenport Holbrook, a vaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook, Sr. http://www.filmreference.com/film/0/Hal-Holbrook.html Hal Holbrook Biography (1925-) He was raised in Weymouth, Massachusetts|South Weymouth, Massachusetts . 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 (for which he won both a Tony Awards|Tony and a Drama Desk Award ).cite web|title=Hal Holbrook at the Internet Broadway Database|work=Awards|url= http://www.ibdb.com/awardperson.asp? id=15128 Holbrook served in the U.S. Army in World War II and was stationed in Dominion of Newfoundland|Newfoundland , where he performed in theatre productions such as the play Madam Precious .
Career
According to Playbill , Holbrook's first solo performance as Twain was at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania|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 The Ed Sullivan Show|show . 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. He was a member of the cast for several years and performed Mark Twain Tonight as the 1957 season opener. http://holyokehistory.blogspot.com/ Holyoke History Room & Archives Valley Players Collection (1941-1993) . HPLA2007.527 The United States Department of State|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 Gramophone record|LP of excerpts from the show.
Holbrook did a special production for the 1964 New York World's Fair|New York World's Fair (1964, 1965) for the Bell Telephone Pavilion. http://www.westland.net/ny64fair/map-docs/technology.htm Jo Mielziner conceived of an innovative audio-visual ride experience and utilized 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 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 the country in what As of|2005|lc=on has amounted to over 2000 performances. He has portrayed Twain longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens did.cite news|title="Mark Twain. Now a Career for the Mustachioed|newspaper=New York Times|date=January 24, 2011|author=Malia Wollan|url= http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/books/24twain.html|quote=...has played Twain going on 57 years, longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens did.
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 theatre|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-judgmental light. In 1976 Holbrook won 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 Holbrook worked on stage and in a television soap opera, The Brighter Day . He is also famous for his role as the enigmatic Deep Throat (Watergate)|Deep Throat (whose identity was unknown at the time) in the film '' All the President's Men (film)|All the President's Men . Holbrook appeared as a featured guest star in a 2006 episode of the HBO series The Sopranos and the NCIS (TV series)|NCIS episode "Escaped".
Holbrook has appeared in at least seven movies in which he is part of a conspiracy: The Fog , Fletch Lives , Magnum Force , The Star Chamber , Capricorn One , '' All the President's Men (film)|All the President's Men , and The Firm (1993 film)|The Firm .
Holbrook was the narrator on the Ken Burns' documentary Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery in 1997.
Holbrook appeared on Fisher Investments ' infomercials. 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.
He appeared in Sean Penn 's critically acclaimed film Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild ( 2007 in film|2007 ) and received an Academy Award|Oscar nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor|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. He has also done a one-man show as Mark Twain . In late August 2007 through mid-September he starred as the narrator in the Hartford Stage production of Thornton Wilder 's Our Town .
Holbrook appeared with wife Dixie Carter in That Evening Sun (film)|That Evening Sun , filmed 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 (author)|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 (magazine)| 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." http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939947.html? categoryid=31& cs=1 Variety, March 26, 2009 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. http://www.prweb.com/releases/nashvillefilmfestival/2009/prweb2357044.htm PR Web.com, April 24, 2009 On April 22, 2010 Holbrook signed on to portray Katey Sagal 's character's father on the FX (TV channel)|FX original series Sons of Anarchy for a four-episode arc in their third season. He also had a multi-episode arc on The Event , an American television series, airing on NBC in the 2010-2011 season.
Holbrook's latest film was Water for Elephants (film)|Water for Elephants (2011).
Personal life
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 (actor)|David Holbrook . 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.
He married Dixie Carter on May 27, 1984. Architect Hoyte Johnson of Atlanta redesigned Dixie's family home and created an environment that Hal and Dixie shared with family and friends. Hal 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. Holbrook and Carter remained married until her death on April 10, 2010.citation needed|date=January 2012 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.
The West Wing (TV series)|The West Wing (2001, 2002)
http://www.theseventhday.tv/ The Seventh Day documentary about persecution of sabbath keepers by the church (2002)
Country Music: The Spirit of America (2003, IMAX )
Shade (film)|Shade (2003)
The Sopranos (2006)
NCIS (TV series)|NCIS (2006)
Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild (2007)
ER (TV series)|ER (2008)
That Evening Sun (film)|That Evening Sun (2009)
Sons of Anarchy (2010)
The Event (TV series)|The Event (2010)
Water for Elephants (film)|Water for Elephants (2011)
Lincoln (2012 film)|Lincoln (2012)
" Savannah (2012)| Savannah " (2012)
col-end
Awards
Academy Awards
(2008) Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor|Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role / Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards
(2008) Nominated - Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor|Best Supporting Actor / Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
(2007) Nominated - Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor|Best Supporting Actor / Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild
Online Film Critics Society Awards
(2008) Nominated - Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor|Best Supporting Actor / Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild
Screen Actors Guild Awards
(2008) Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture|Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role / Into the Wild (film)|Into the Wild
Primetime Emmy Awards
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie|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 (film)|The Whole World is Watching
Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama or Comedy Special
(1978) Nominated - Our Town
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series|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)
Primetime Emmy Award for Actor of the Year|Actor of the Year (Retired category)
(1974) Won - Pueblo
References
Reflist
Further reading
Holbrook, Hal. (1959). ''Mark Twain Tonight& #33; An Actor's Portrait . New York: Ives Washburn.
Young, Jordan R. (1989). Acting Solo: The Art of One-Person Shows . Beverly Hills: Past Times Publishing Co.
External links
commons
IMDb name|1358
IBDB name|15128
iobdb|Hal|Holbrook
C-SPAN|halholbrook
Worldcat id|lccn-n88-68074
Nndb|000/000022931
http://www.the7thday.org The Seventh Day, a 2002 5-DVD set documentary on the history of the Sabbath. Produced by LLT Productions.
http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/holbrook.html 2004 Story on Holbrook from NOW (series)|NOW
http://www.playbill.com/celebritybuzz/whoswho/biography/3785 Biography and http://www.playbill.com/news/article/89647.html 2004 story about his return to Broadway from Playbill
http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2007/pdf/HR/HR0058PS.pdf State of Mississippi Resolution
Template group|title=Awards for Hal Holbrook |list= EmmyAward DramaLeadActor 1950-1975EmmyAward MiniseriesLeadActor 1950-1975EmmyAward MiniseriesLeadActor 1976-2000TonyAward PlayLeadActor 1947-1975 Persondata|NAME = Holbrook, Hal |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Holbrook, Harold Rowe, Jr. |SHORT DESCRIPTION= Actor |DATE OF BIRTH = February 17, 1925 |PLACE OF BIRTH = Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |DATE OF DEATH = |PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Holbrook, Hal Category:1925 births Category:Actors from Cleveland, Ohio Category:American film actors Category:American impressionists (entertainers) Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:Denison University alumni Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Living people Category:National Humanities Medal recipients Category:People from Norfolk County, Massachusetts Category:Tony Award winners
