Jason Robards
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Biography
The foremost male interpreter of the works of playwright Eugene O'Neill since the mid-1950s, Jason Robards owes his career to the celebrated 1956 Circle in the Square revival of the playwright's "The Iceman Cometh," directed by Jose Quintero, which thrust the versatile actor from obscurity into the limelight. The parallels between his own life and O'Neill's are striking and surely resonated for his Broadway debut as Jamie Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (1957), the most autobiographical of the playwright's oeuvre. O'Neill's father had been a talented actor who wasted his talent (but made his fortune) in years of easy repetition as the star of "The Count of Monte Cristo." Likewise, Robards' father was a wonderful Broadway actor, who in his son's words "sold out," moved to Hollywood and "went down the tubes out there." Robards tapped into the essence of O'Neill, perfectly essaying the highly intelligent, often sensitive but frequently stubborn men, sometimes defeated by their own penchant for sadness while prone to angry outbursts, prejudice and alcoholism.
Robards got to act with his father in Budd Schulberg's "The Disenchanted" (1958), earning a Tony Award as Manley Halliday, a thinly-disguised portrait of a drunken F Scott Fitzgerald. He then made his feature debut as a Hungarian freedom fighter in "The Journey" (1959), but no matter how much film and TV work he took (and it was prodigious), he always returned to the stage until ill health forced him from the boards in the late 90s. His remarkable accomplishments in the theater include stagings of O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten" (1973), "A Touch of the Poet" (1977) and "Ah, Wilderness!" (1988), frequently opposite another O'Neill specialist Colleen Dewhurst, and he also recreated his role as Hickey in a 1985 Broadway revival of "Iceman," not to mention portraying the elder Tyrone in 1975 and 1988 productions of "Long Day's Journey Into Night." He has played in everything from Shakespeare ("Macbeth" 1959) to Pinter ("No Man's Land" 1994, Moonlight" 1995) and received an impressive eight Tony nominations, beginning with his 1957 supporting nod for "Long Day's Journey Into Night," followed by seven nominations for his leading turns, the last in 1978 for "A Touch of the Poet."
Robards' screen career gained steam when he reprised his stage role for Sidney Lumet's splendid adaptation of "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (1962). He received top-billing for the first time as society dropout Murray Burns in "A Thousand Clowns" (1965), one of his favorite parts which he had also originated on Broadway, and his excellent turn as George S Kaufman in the film of Moss Hart's autobiography, "Act One" (1963), unveiled his uncanny talent for inhabiting the bodies of historical figures like a second skin. Even a partial listing of his real-life impersonations seems almost endless: Abraham Lincoln ("Abe Lincoln in Illinois," NBC 1964; "The Perfect Tribute," ABC 1991), Al Capone ("The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" 1967), supportive Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee ("All the President's Men" 1976, for which he won a Best Supporting Oscar), novelist Dashiell Hammett ("Julia" 1977, which garnered a second Supporting Actor Oscar), Franklin Delano Roosevelt ("FDR--The Last Year," NBC 1980), Howard Hughes ("Melvin and Howard" 1980, his third Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor), physicist-turned-activist Andrei Sakharov ("Sakharov," HBO 1984), and Mark Twain ("Mark Twain & Me," The Disney Channel 1991).
Although not above a little scenery chewing now and then, Robards for the most part remained grounded in a pensive, wide-ranging realism. Particularly adept at the tragic soulfulness that enabled him to excel in O'Neill's plays, he showed his lighter touch as the likable lecher in "Any Wednesday" (1966) and the charming, titular desert rat in Sam Peckinpah's Damon Runyanesque oater "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1970). He relished every moment as one of the trio of heavies stalking through Sergio Leone's memorable "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1969), and he created the stern, widowed father in "The House Without a Christmas Tree" (CBS, 1972), a special about a Nebraska family during the 40s, which inspired three CBS sequels ("The Thanksgiving Treasure" 1973, "The Easter Promise" 1975, "Addie and the King of Hearts" 1976). This TV role was a perfect example of a type he would play more and more as he aged, the crusty outsider whose cranky nature belies a complex mixture of wisdom and weakness.
Robards was wonderful in the Neil Simon-scripted "Max Dugan Returns" (1983) as the father who abandoned Marsha Mason when she was nine and blows back into her life now dying of a heart ailment and carrying a suitcase full of cash left over form a checkered career in Las Vegas, determined to finally do right by her. In a similar vein, Ron Howard's "Parenthood" (1989) cast him as the acidic family patriarch (and formerly neglectful parent) who gets a second chance at fatherhood late in life when his ne'er-do-well, 27-year-old son (Tom Hulce) returns with his own illegitimate child. Outstanding in his Emmy-nominated role as the historically-based Richard Monckton (Richard Nixon) in his miniseries debut, "Washington: Behind Closed Doors" (ABC, 1977), Robards finally won an Emmy on his fifth try as Henry Drummond (based on real-life attorney Clarence Darrow) in NBC's adaptation of "Inherit the Wind" (1988). As for Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia" (1993), it called for pure, cold-hearted villainy from him as the head of a law firm that dismisses a colleague (Tom Hanks) with AIDS.
With age came parts as appealing grandfathers in "Heidi" (The Disney Channel, 1993) and "My Antonia" (USA Network, 1995), which put Robards' grizzled quality to good effect. Infirmity may have short-circuited his stage career, but there was less taxing work for him in movies like Demme's "Beloved" (1998), Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" (1999) and "Going Home" (CBS, 2000), the latter two featuring him as increasingly helpless characters. There was also his instantly recognizable voice, which he lent so memorably as Union General Ulysses S Grant to Ken Burns' documentary "The Civil War" (PBS, 1990). Long in demand as a narrator of TV documentaries and specials like "Polar Bear Alert" (1982), "The Unknown Soldier" (1985), "Thomas Hart Benton" (1989), "Pearl Harbor" (1991), "When Doctors Get Cancer" (1994) and the PBS series, "On the Waterways" (1991), he continued in this capacity on such projects as "TR, the Story of Theodore Roosevelt" (PBS, 1996), "Truman" (PBS, 1997) and "U.S.S. Indianapolis: Tragedy at Sea" (Discovery Channel, 1998). All the voluminous film and TV work aside, Robards' legacy remains his interpretation of the tormented O'Neill characters, the likes of which may not be seen again.
Life Events
1939
Served as a radioman with the US Navy; stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack that precipitated American involvement in WWII
1947
Stage acting debut in "Out of the Frying Pan", Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
1947
Broadway debut in "The Mikado"
1951
Served as assistant stage manager at NYC's 48th Street Theatre
1951
Appeared in Broadway production of "Stalag 17" at 48th Street Theatre
1952
Was assistant stage managr at NYC's Playhouse Theatre
1956
Performed in acclaimed Circle in the Square production of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh", directed by Jose Quintero, in which the audience was so close a patron once reached over and touched Robards' cheek; his OBIE-winning protrayal of Hickey revitalized his career, and the success of the production convinced the playwright's widow Carlotta to allow Quintero to stage "Long Day's Journey Into Night"
1957
Played Jamie Tyrone in the original Broadway production of O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night"
1958
Performed together onstage with his father for almost a year in Budd Schulberg's "The Disenchanted", which earned him his only Tony (Best Actor in a Drama) to date for his role as Manley Halliday (a thinly disguised F Scott Fitzgerald)
1959
Film acting debut as a Hungarian freedom fighter in Anatole Litvak's "The Journey"
1959
Acted the part of Dr. Rank in an NBC "Hallmark Hall of Fame" presentation of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House"; Julie Harris portrayed Nora and Christopher Plummer was Torvald
1959
Starred as "Macbeth" in a Quintero-directed production in Cambridge, Massachusettes
1960
Acted on Broadway in Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Atttic", garnering a Tony nomination
1962
Reprised his role as Jamie Tyrone in Sidney Lumet's film version of "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and starred opposite Jennifer Jones in "Tender Is the Night", based on F Scott Fitzgerald's novel
1962
Starred as Murray Burns in Broadway production of "A Thousand Clowns"
1963
Essayed the role of playwright George S. Kaufman in "Act One", a film adaptation of Moss Hart's autobiography
1964
First played Abraham Lincoln in a TV adaptation of Robert Sherwood's play "Abe Lincoln in Illinois"; received first Emmy nomination
1965
Reprised Murray Burns character and received top billing in a feature film for the first time in "A Thousand Clowns"
1968
Acted on Broadway in Joseph Heller's "We Bombed in New Haven", which bombed in New York
1970
Received credit as song performer in Sam Peckinpah's "The Ballad of Cable Hogue", singing "Butterfly Mornin's"; also starred in title role
1972
Was in a car crash on a California highway in the mountains; had no heartbeat when he arrived at the nearest hospital
1972
Played role of James Mills in "The House Without a Christmas Tree", the first of four CBS nearly annual TV-movies exploring the lives of a Nebraska family in the 1940s
1973
Reteamed with Peckinpah for "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid", playing Governor Lew Wallace (the author of "Ben Hur")
1973
Played James Tyrone Jr opposite Colleen Dewhurst's Josie Hogan in Broadway production of O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten" (directed by Quintero), stopped drinking for good during its run (a process which he had begun soon after his near-death in the wreck), though he admitted to The New York Times (February 9, 1994): "Of course, every once in a while I'll take a glass of wine"
1975
Earned second Emmy nomination for the "ABC Theatre" presentation of "A Moon for the Misbegotten"
1975
Acted a second time in "Long Day's Journey Into Night", this time in the role of the father, James Tyrone, in a production staged first at Washington DC's Eisenhower Theatre and the following year at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; also directed production
1976
Made last of four TV-movies about the Mills family, "Addie and the King of Hearts"
1976
Earned first Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in "All the President's Men"
1977
Snagged second Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Dashiell Hammett in "Julia", based on Hellman's memoir "Pentimento"
1977
First TV miniseries, "Washington: Behind Closed Doors" (ABC), earned another Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Richard Monckton (a thinly-disguised Richard Nixon)
1977
Acted in Broadway production of O'Neill's "A Touch of the Poet", directed by Quintero
1980
Oscar-nominated for his supporting turn as reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in "Melvin and Howard"; first collaboration with director Jonathan Demme
1980
Received an Emmy nomination for his title portrayal in NBC's "F.D.R -- The Final Years"; also garnered praise as agent and producer Leland Hayward in CBS' "Haywire"
1983
Starred in the title role of "Max Dugan Returns", scripted by Neil Simon
1983
Played an American doctor fighting to survive in the aftermath of nuclear war in ABC's "The Day After"
1983
Portrayed Grandpa Martin Vanderhof in Broadway revival of "You Can't Take It with You"; acted with Dewhurst during course of its run
1984
Acclaimed for his portrayal of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in HBO's "Sakharov"
1985
Reprised his role as Hickey in Broadway production of "The Iceman Cometh", directed by Quintero
1988
Only movie to date with son Sam, "Bright Lights, Big City"
1988
Acted a third time (again as the senior Tyrone) in stage production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night", this time a Broadway revival directed by Quintero; done in repertory with O'Neill's lone comedy, "Ah, Wilderness!", in which he played Nat Miller; acted with Dewhurst and her son Campbell Scott in both productions
1988
Copped an Emmy as Henry Drummond in the NBC presentation of "Inherit the Wind"
1989
First collaboration with director Ron Howard, playing the father of grown children (Steve Martin, Dianne Wiest, Harley Kozak and Tom Hulce) in "Parenthood"
1990
Provided the voice of Ulysses S. Grant in Ken Burns' acclaimed PBS documentary "The Civil War"; had previously played Grant in the little-seen "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" (1981)
1991
Again played Abraham Lincoln in the ABC TV-movie "The Perfect Tribute"
1991
Portrayed Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) in "Mark Twain & Me" (The Disney Channel), a TV-movie based on the author's friendship with 11-year-old Dorothy Quick, as chronicled in her autobiographical account, "Enchantment"
1991
Hosted and narrated the 13-part PBS documentary series "On the Waterways"
1993
Played cold-hearted head of a law firm that dismisses a young colleague (Tom Hanks) with AIDS in Demme's "Philadelphia"
1993
Portrayed the grandfather in The Disney Channel miniseries remake of "Heidi"
1994
Reteamed with Ron Howard for "The Paper"
1994
Starred on Broadway with Christopher Plummer as two elderly British poets in revival of Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land"
1995
Acted in Pinter's "Moonlight" at NYC's Roundabout Theater's new Laura Pels Theater in NYC
1996
Last stage role to date in Brial Friel's "Molly Sweeney" with Alfred Molina (also for the Roundabout)
1997
Played the Lear-like patriarch in "A Thousand Acres"
1998
Played Mr. Bodwin in Demme's "Beloved", starring Oprah Winfrey
1999
Portrayed the dying patriarch Earl Partridge in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia"
2000
Starred opposite Sherry Stringfield as an elderly father who can no longer take care of himself in the CBS movie "Going Home"
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