R.I.P. Hal Holbrook of Creepshow and The Fog has passed away at 95

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Hal Holbrook's screen acting career last 55 years, and during that time he racked up over 130 film and television credits. Every time Holbrook showed up on the screen, it was a joy to watch him work, whether he was getting on Dirty Harry's bad side in Magnum Force, providing information as Deep Throat in All the President's Men, playing Abraham Lincoln in multiple mini-series, bumping heads with Chevy Chase in Fletch Lives, appearing alongside third wife Dixie Carter on the sitcom Designing Women, or earning an Oscar nomination for his role in Into the Wild. He worked with a couple "masters of horror", appearing in John Carpenter's The Fog and George A. Romero's Creepshow, and genre fans might also remember him for his work in Rituals, Girls Nite Out, and The Unholy.

Sadly, it has been confirmed that Holbrook passed away on January 23rd at the age of 95.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1925, Holbrook was 17 when he earned his first acting paycheck, performing in The Man Who Came to Dinner at Cleveland's Cain Park Theater. After serving in the Army for three years during World War II, he became a theater major at Ohio's Denison University, where his senior honors project focused on Mark Twain – someone who would be very important to him for the rest of his career.

The Hollywood Reporter explains, 

Holbrook played Twain longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who made Twain his pen name in 1863. He first appeared as the famed author and humorist in the late 1940s in a show for school groups; Holbrook’s first wife, Ruby, would ask questions of famous people in history, including Twain. He turned that into the one-man show, Mark Twain Tonight!, in the 1950s.

An appearance as the Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn author on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 gave Holbrook a huge career boost, and after a stint off-Broadway, he headed to Broadway in 1966 and won a Tony for lead actor in a play.

In 1967, Holbrook re-created Mark Twain Tonight! for a CBS special and, with “The Godfather of Makeup” Dick Smith helping with his transformation, earned the first of his 12 career Emmy nominations. The actor traveled the nation with the show in the ensuing decades, performing in Twain’s trademark white coat for thousands of performances. … He finally retired the one-man show in September 2017 after canceling a performance he was to do in Oklahoma City.

Holbrook won five Emmys over the decades, including being named "Actor of the Year" for the 1973 TV movie Pueblo.

It's sad to hear that Holbrook is no longer with us, but it's great that we have so many years of his work to look back on and continue enjoying.

He is survived by his children Victoria, David, and Eve.