National Post (National Edition)
Actor embodied Twain
In a remarkable feat of theatrical longevity, actor Hal Holbrook, who died Jan. 23 at 95, played Samuel Clemens — better known as Mark Twain — in a solo show for nearly as long as the U.S. humorist and iconoclast was alive.
Mark Twain Tonight!, which Holbrook conceived and debuted in 1954, earned him a Tony Award on Broadway in 1966 and captivated more than 20 million TV viewers in a telecast in 1967. Into his 90s, he was still criss-crossing the globe, weaving Twain's stories and quips into a peppery monologue about mankind's pretensions and vices.
Twain, the sly, whitehaired, white-suited storyteller remembered for such books as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, died in 1910 at 74.
Through Holbrook's immersion in the role, which he performed more than 2,200 times, he allowed generations of theatregoers to meet Twain as the walrus-mustached author appeared in his final years, reciting his comic aphorisms and doing staged readings of his best-loved works.
Holbrook's career spanned seven decades and 130 films and TV shows, maintaining a hectic career as a character actor known for taut, intelligent performances.
He once said he sometimes chose roles to get far, far away from Twain's shadow. “I'll never be able to satisfy myself,” he said, “until I prove myself without that wig on.”
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. was born in Cleveland on Feb. 17, 1925. A lonely and lacklustre student with little aptitude for athletics, he found sanctuary in a drama class and then a calling as an actor, seeking “to make myself disappear” in costumes and wigs.
He polished his Twain show for five years before it became a critical sensation off-Broadway in 1959.
In all his years of performing as Twain, a 63-year run that ended in 2017, Holbrook took greatest pride in his ability to relate Twain's piquant lines to contemporary politics and race relations.
On a tour of the U.S. South in 1962, he performed at the University of Mississippi days after James Meredith's enrolment as the first Black student had provoked mob violence. On stage as Twain, Holbrook talked about the silence maintained by most people amid great injustice. “There is no art to this silent lie,” he said. “It is timid and shabby.” He let the words hang in the air.