Hal Holbrook is an actor and writer who first achieved international prominence for his one-person show impersonating the American humorist Mark Twain. Holbrook was born Harold Rowe Holbrook, Jr. on February 17, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Culver Military Academy in 1942, and served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1943 to 1946, where he acquired his first radio experience on Special Services radio programs. On September 22, 1945 he married actress Ruby Johnston, with whom he later had a son and a daughter. After the war Hal and Ruby Holbrook returned to Denison University in Ohio, from which they both graduated in 1948.
Holbrook's theatrical career began with stock company performances in Cleveland, Ohio in 1942, and from 1947 to 1950 he performed another four seasons in stock and directed The Winslow Boy at Denison. In the winters of 1948-1953 he and Ruby Holbrook went on tour presenting scenes from the classics, in which Holbrook appeared as Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and others. He first appeared in his original one-person show Mark Twain Tonight! in 1955-1956 at the New York City nightclubs The Purple Onion and The Upstairs at the Duplex. In the summer of 1958 he appeared in a musical version of The Doctor in Spite of Himself at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut. Continuing work on his Mark Twain show resulted in his opening Mark Twain Tonight! on Broadway on April 6, 1959 at the 41st Street Theatre. For this performance Holbrook received a Vernon Rice Award, a Village Voice (Obie) Award, and the Outer Circle Award. Under the auspices of the U.S. State Department and ANTA he toured with the show in the U.S., Europe, and Saudi Arabia in 1959-1961. Again in 1963 Holbrook toured with the show in the U.S.
His theatrical career also includes a number of other performances. He played the Man in Do You Know the Milky Way? (Billy Rose Th., Oct. 16, 1961); John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster in Richard II (June 16, 1962) and Hotspur in Henry IV, Part I (June 17, 1962) at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Conn.; Abraham Lincoln in the Phoenix Theatre production of Abe Lincoln in Illinois (Anderson, Jan. 21, 1963); and Andrew Mackerel in a tour of The Mackerel Plaza in the summer of 1963. He also played in After the Fall (ANTA, Washington Square Th., Jan. 23, 1964), Marco Millions (ANTA, Washington Square Th., February 20, 1964), and alternated with Jason Robards, Jr., as Quentin in After the Fall (ANTA, Washington Square Th., July 4, 1964). He returned to Broadway in 1968 in I Never Sang for My Father and played the lead in Man of La Mancha.
On television Holbrook has appeared on The Hollywood Screen Test in 1953; the soap opera The Brighter Day from 1954 to 1959; as Mark Twain on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 and in 1958 on Bob Hope's The Sound of Laughter. He was also in I Remember Mama in 1958. In 1963 he did scenes from Abe Lincoln in Illinois on The Ed Sullivan Show and played Abraham Lincoln in the Exploring series. In 1966 Holbrook starred with Shirley Booth in The Glass Menagerie. In addition, he played the lead in the Emmy award winning series The Bold Ones: The Senator in 1970-1971, and starred in the television movies, That Certain Summer (1972), a highly praised, controversial film about homosexuality, and Pueblo (1973), in which his portrayal of Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher won an Emmy.
Among his recent motion pictures are Wild in the Streets (1968), The People Next Door (AVCO, Embassy, 1970), They Only Kill Their Masters (MGM, 1972), and Magnum Force (WB,1973).
In 1959 his book Mark Twain Tonight! An Actor's Portrait was published.
