Acting legend Hal Holbrook has died tonight. He was 95.
The Cleveland native won five Emmys, earned an Oscar nom for “Into the Wild” at age 82, famously reincarnated Mark Twain on stage and screen across thousands of performances for more than six decades, and has racked up dozens of memorable roles.
Holbrook had memorable turns as the shadowy informant Deep Throat in “All the President’s Men,” the vigilante police chief in “Magnum Force,” a priest with a secret in John Carpenter’s “The Fog,” an old-school stockbroker in “Wall Street,” a NASA staffer who orchestrates a fake Mars landing in “Capricorn One,” presidential adviser Preston Blair in “Lincoln,” and a judge who goes above the law in “The Star Chamber”.
He played Abraham Lincoln several times – winning an Emmy for a 1974 mini-series and reprising the role for the high-profile “North and South” mini-series. Hollywood likes to cast him as villains such as his part as the head of the insidious “The Firm,” or the Confederate-obsessed ‘Ham’ Johnson in “Fletch Lives”.
Other notable film roles included the voice of Amphitryon in “Hercules,” “The Great White Hope,” “Creepshow,” “Midway,” “Waking the Dead,” “The Majestic,” “Water for Elephants,” “Promised Land,” “Men of Honor,” “Judas Kiss,” “Eye of God,” “The Unholy,” “The People Next Door”.
His TV work was no less prodigious. He was the father of Katey Sagal’s iconic Gemma Teller Morrow character in FX’s “Sons of Anarchy,” appeared several times as Wild Bill McKenzie in “A Perry Mason Mystery,” played John Adams in the “George Washington” mini-series, and had guest roles in “The West Wing,” “The Sopranos,” “Rectify,” “Bones,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Family Law,” “The Outer Limits” and more.
Holbrook was also host and narrator of the Portrait of America documentary series and received a Peabody Award in 1989.
Holbrook was married three times, the last to “Designing Woman” star Dixie Carter – the pair were married for 26 years until her death from cancer in 2010. Survivors include his children Victoria, David and Eve.
Source: THR