Hal Holbrook was an American actor.
Holbrook was best known for his role as Mark Twain, which he portrayed for decades beginning in 1954 in a one-man show called Mark Twain Tonight! that he directed himself and for which he won the best actor Tony in 1966. He returned to Broadway with the show in 1977 and 2005. He received an Emmy nomination for the TV adaptation of Mark Twain Tonight! in 1967. Holbrook announced his retirement from portraying Twain in September 2017.
Holbrook's voice and appearance lent itself to other historical portrayals and parts that required dignity and seriousness. He portrayed 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 its sequel the following year. He played the commander-in-chief in 1980 film The Kidnapping of the President, a senior judge tempted into vigilante justice in The Star Chamber, and John Adams in the 1984 miniseries George Washington. Later on, he played the assistant secretary of state on The West Wing, and most recently he played conservative Republican congressman Preston Blair in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln.
He recurred on the late 1980s sitcom Designing Women alongside his real-life wife, Dixie Carter. Holbrook left the show so he could take one of the starring roles in Burt Reynolds' sitcom Evening Shade, in which he played Reynolds' father-in-law. He appeared in 79 episodes of the show from 1990-94.
The actor made an impression in feature films as well, playing Deep Throat in All the President's Men, a power-mad police lieutenant in the Dirty Harry movie Magnum Force, and a stockbroker warning of the dangers of a lack of ethics in Oliver Stone's Wall Street. He won a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his role in the film Into the Wild in 2008. At the time, the 82-year-old Holbrook was the oldest performer to ever receive such recognition.
Holbrook's did quite a bit of voice-over work, narrating documentaries and films such as The Mighty Mississippi, The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine, and Water for Elephants. He won an Emmy in 1989 for narrating the "Alaska" segment of the Portrait of America documentary series.
Holbrook's recent television appearances include Sons of Anarchy, Bones, Grey's Anatomy, and Hawaii Five-O.
In 2014, Holbrook was the subject of the documentary Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and depicted Holbrook's career portraying Twain.
Holbrook died January 23, 2021, in Beverly Hills, California. He was 95.
