Jason Robards

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Jason Robards

Robards as Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Birth name Jason Nelson Robards Jr.
Born July 26, 1922(1922-07-26)
Chicago, Illinois
Died December 26, 2000 (aged 78)
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Spouse(s) Eleanor Pittman (1948-1958)
Rachel Taylor (1959-1961)
Lauren Bacall (1961-1969)
Lois O'Connor (1970-2000)

Jason Nelson Robards, Jr., (July 26, 1922 – December 26, 2000) was an Emmy Award, Tony Award, and two-time Academy Award-winning American actor. He became famous playing works of American dramatist Eugene O'Neill, and would regularly play O'Neill's works throughout his career. Robards' was cast in both common-man roles and as well known historical figures.

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Robards was born in Chicago to Hope Maxine Glanville and Jason Robards, Sr.,[1] an actor who regularly appeared on the stage and in such early films as The Gamblers (1929) and was among the better-known actors of the first half of the twentieth century. The family moved to New York City when young Jason was still a toddler, and then moved to Los Angeles when he was six years old. Later interviews with Robards suggested that the trauma of his parents' divorce, (which occurred during his grade-school years) greatly affected his personality and worldview. Jason as a youth also witnessed firsthand the decline of his father's acting career; the elder Robards had enjoyed considerable success during the era of silent films, but he fell out of favor after the advent of "talkies," leaving Jason Jr. soured on the Hollywood film industry. The teenaged Robards excelled in athletics, running a 4:18 mile during his junior year at Hollywood High School. Although his prowess in sports attracted interest from several universities, upon his graduation in 1940 Robards decided to join the U.S. Navy.

Radioman 3rd class Robards joined the new cruiser USS Honolulu (CL-48) at Pearl Harbor late in 1941. He was on board when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7. He recalls,

“Our cruiser, the USS Honolulu, was just across the channel from ‘Battleship row’ when the Japanese turned loose all hell. It was about 8 in the morning and most of us were just getting up, taking our time getting dressed for Sunday breakfast. Then we heard the booms. We rushed topside to see what the racket was all about. By now, our P.A. system had started, ‘Air Raid! This is no drill! Air Raid! This is no drill!”
“For the first few minutes — total chaos. Guys grabbing their clothes and whatever gear they could find; guys running in aimless directions; guys shouting orders; guys ignoring them. Somehow out of all this insanity our gun crews got to their stations and started firing. I headed for my post, the radio and communications center, as fast as possible.
“What we were to find out later was that by this time the USS Arizona and her 2,200 men were well on the way to the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The Oklahoma was listing heavily to port. The decks of the West Virginia and California were almost awash. Everywhere was fire and smoke and more black smoke from the burning oil. It was while we were making an effort to cast off and sortie that a Japanese dive bomber zoomed in on us, its bomb blasting the concrete pier on the ship’s port side and piercing the oil tanks, warping her bulkheads. We could no longer participate in the defensive assault. When the order to sortie was given, a crewman not only chopped the casting lines, but severed also the power lines of the cruiser. Our guns could not be fired.”

He recalled that his mind went numb at the time and everything was gut reaction. Like many who were there he said, “I’ll never forget the sight of those Japanese planes attacking our fleet and all those battleships with their decks awash after the raid.”

Robards would see considerable action in the Pacific theater of World War II, initially during the engagements at Wake Island and Midway. The heavy cruiser USS Northampton (CA-26) was later directed into the Guadalcanal campaign, where it was involved in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

During the Battle of Tassafaronga on the night of November 30, 1942, the Northampton was sunk by hits from two Japanese torpedoes. Robards found himself treading water until near daybreak, when he was rescued by an American destroyer. He was awarded the Navy Cross for valor during this battle. NOTE: Careful investigation reveals that the United States Navy does not have a record of awarding a Navy Cross to anyone named Jason Robards. It is possible that he served under another name, one used before he became an actor. It is also possible that records of the award were lost during the war. See http://www.homeofheroes.com/valor/0_NC/06_ncross_wwii-listAll.html

Two years later in November, 1944 Robards was in another dramatic engagement this time as a radioman on the USS Nashville (CL-43) which was the flagship for the invasion of Mindoro. On December 13 she was struck by a kamikaze off Negros Island. The aircraft itself hit one of the port five inch gun mounts while her two bombs set the midsection ablaze. There were 223 casualties and the Nashville was forced to return to Pearl Harbor and then Puget Sound for repairs. It was also on the Nashville that he first found a copy of Eugene O’Neill’s play Strange Interlude in the ship’s library.

When he was finally discharged after five and a half years he had been in thirteen major engagements. And as his father said, “He was 24 and had seen too much — buddies being killed around him, the strain of prolonged attacks. You know what it does. It made him brittle.”

But it was in the Navy that he first started reading stage plays and thinking seriously about being an actor. He had also emceed a Navy band in Pearl Harbor, gotten a few laughs and decided he liked it. His father suggested he enroll in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. After a few months the director told him, “You don’t need anything else here. Get out and start working.”

Robards decided to get into acting after the war. His career started out slowly. He moved to New York City and found small parts there, first in radio and then on the stage. His big break was landing the starring role in José Quintero's 1956 off-Broadway production and the 1960 television film of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, as the philosophical salesman Hickey, winning an Obie Award for his performance. He also played Hickey in a 1985 Broadway revival staged by Quintero, who directed Robards in Broadway productions of O'Neill's plays Long Day's Journey Into Night, Hughie, A Touch of the Poet and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He repeated his performance in Long Day's Journey Into Night in the 1962 film and televised his performances in A Moon for the Misbegotten and Hughie.

Robards also appeared on stage in a 1988 Broadway revival of O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! directed by Arvin Brown, as well as Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic, Arthur Miller's After the Fall, Clifford Odets' The Country Girl and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land.

He made his film debut in the 1946 two-reel comedy Follow That Music, but after his Broadway success he was invited to make his feature debut in The Journey in 1959. He became a familiar face to movie audiences throughout the 1960s, notably for his performances in A Thousand Clowns (1965) (repeating his stage performance), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Robards may be the only actor to have ever played three different US Presidents on film - namely Abraham Lincoln in The Perfect Tribute and a television production of Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Ulysses S. Grant in The Legend of the Lone Ranger (a role he also voiced in the PBS miniseries The Civil War), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in FDR: The Final Years. He also created a sensation as the fictional president Richard Monckton (based on Richard Nixon) in the television miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977). He also voiced a number of documentaries, including Ken Burns' Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio

Robards received eight Tony Award nominations,[2] more than any other male actor, and won in 1959 as Best Actor for his work in The Disenchanted, which was also his only stage appearance with his father. Robards received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in consecutive years for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977).[3] He was also nominated for another Oscar for his role in Melvin and Howard (1980) and received the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for the 1988 production of Inherit the Wind.[4] He was among the recipients at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999.[5]

Robards had six children from his four marriages, including actor Sam Robards by his third wife, actress Lauren Bacall, whom he married in 1961 and from whom he was divorced in 1969.

In 1972, he was in a terrible automobile accident on a winding California road. He drove his car into the side of a mountain and nearly died. His acute drinking problem contributed to the accident. He slowly recovered after extensive surgery and facial reconstruction.

A resident of the Southport section of Fairfield, Connecticut,[6] He died of lung cancer at the age of 78 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His passing was mourned by both fans and actors, and at a memorial service at Broadway's Broadhurst Theater to honor Robards, it was actors who seemed to feel most profoundly the loss of one of the greats, one of their own. "He was the last of a breed of actors who dedicated themselves to a life in the theater," said Kevin Spacey.[citation needed]

Jennifer Jason Leigh chose her middle name in honor of Robards. Robards was a major US Civil War buff and scholar. He ultimately did the voice of Ulysses S. Grant for Ken Burns' miniseries The Civil War.

The Jason Robards Award was created by the Roundabout Theatre Company in honor of the late actor and his relationship with the theatre.

Broadway theatre

'Film'

Television

Awards
Preceded by
George Burns
for The Sunshine Boys		 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1976
for All the President's Men
1977
for Julia		 Succeeded by
Christopher Walken
for The Deer Hunter

  1. ^ http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/FGS/R/RobardsJasonNelson-HopeMaxineGlanville-AgnesE_.shtml
  2. ^ [1] American Theatre Wing website
  3. ^ [2] Oscars data base of nominees and winners
  4. ^ [3] Emmy Awards Database of nominees and winners
  5. ^ [4] Kennedy Center list of Honorees
  6. ^ "From the Archives" feature ("The Week of July 8") of The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut, July 9, 2007, page A7, Stamford edition: "July 12, 1982: Actor Jason Robards hosted a party for [...] Ernest Abate in support of his bid for governor. The actor opened his home in the Southport section of Fairfield [...]"

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