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More Hal Holbrook Bios & Profiles

 

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Biography #2 (for The Majestic)

Hal Holbrook has distinguished himself in a wide variety of roles that have taken him from the stage to television to motion pictures in a career spanning six decades. A native of Cleveland, Holbrook earned his first acting paycheck at age seventeen as the son, Richard, in The Man Who Came to Dinner at Cleveland's Cain Park Theater. Holbrook enrolled as a theatre major at Ohio's Denison University, where he developed his signature role -- the characterization of Mark Twain that has brought him international acclaim, and which he has performed annually for the past 47 years.

His one-man show, Mark Twain Tonight!, opened off-Broadway in 1959, winning the Obie, Outer Critics Circle and Vernon Rice Awards and a Grammy nomination for spoken word recording. Holbrook brought the unique dramatization to Broadway, where he collected a Tony Award and a special citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle and repeated the performance on television in 1967, earning the first of his twelve Emmy Award nominations (of which he has won five).

Holbrook's theatre credits include Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman, Merchant of Venice, King Lear, The Country Girl, Abraham Lincoln in Illinois, The Glass Menagerie, Man of La Mancha, Henry IV, Pt. 1, After the Fall, Marco's Millions and Our Town.

Holbrook, debuted on television in 1954 and won his first Emmy Award for his role as Hays Stowe in The Senator. His television credits include Pueblo (two Emmys, as Actor of the Year and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Special), Sandburg's Lincoln (received an Emmy Award), and his Emmy-nominated performances in That Certain Summer, Our Town, The Awakening Land, The Whole World Is Watching and has had recurring roles on Designing Women (opposite wife Dixie Carter) and Evening Shade. As host and narrator of Portrait of America documentary series, he received the prestigious Peabody Award, the CableACE honor and his fifth Emmy.

Holbrook made his motion picture debut in Sidney Lumet's The Group. His film credits include All the President's Men, Wild in the Streets, The Great White Hope, Magnum Force, They Only Kill Their Masters, The Girl from Petrovka, Midway, Julia, Capricorn One, The Fog, Creepshow, Fletch Lives, The Star Chamber, Wall Street, The Firm, Hush, Judas' Kiss, Waking the Dead, Disney's Hercules (the voice of Amphitryon), The Bachelor, Men of Honor and the forthcoming release Purpo.

Bio courtesy Warner Bros. for "The Majestic" (08-Feb-2003)