Jason Robards

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Jason Robards (1975)

Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. (born July 26, 1922 in Chicago , Illinois , † December 26, 2000 in Bridgeport , Connecticut ) was an American actor and two-time Oscar winner.

Life

Early life

Jason Robards was born to the actor couple Jason Robards senior (1892-1963) and Agnes Lynch (1902-1964). He grew up in New York City and Los Angeles . After graduating from Hollywood High School , he served as a naval officer in World War II from 1940 . After the end of the war, he initially aspired to a career as a professional athlete, but then decided to act and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts . At that time, his father had already acted in over 200 films, albeit mostly in smaller roles.

Acting career

Jason Robards (1999)

In New York, Robards kept afloat doing odd jobs on smaller stages and on the radio. His breakthrough as an actor came in 1956 in the Broadway adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play The Ice Man Comes .

1959 was Robards in The Journey (The Journey) made his screen debut. Originally, he never wanted to work in film because he hated Hollywood and remembered his father's negative experiences. But despite his success as a stage actor, he had financial problems and was dependent on the money. He quickly became known to a wider audience through appearances in such films as One Long Day's Journey into the Night , A Thousand Clowns, and the Chicago Massacre . In 1968 Robards played one of the four main roles in Sergio Leone's western classic Play Me a Song of Death and played the bandit Cheyenne. In 1970 he played the leading role in Settled by Sam Peckinpah . In the same year he also worked in Torah! Torah! Torah! with, a film about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that he witnessed himself as a young soldier.

In the 1970s, Robards suffered a serious car accident in which his face was so badly damaged that he also had to undergo plastic surgery. He then experienced his comeback in 1976, among other things, with his portrayal of the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post Ben Bradlee in the film about the Watergate affair The Untouchables by Alan J. Pakula , for which he received an Oscar for best supporting actor . A year later he was awarded again for the role as Lillian Hellman's partner Dashiell Hammett in the autobiographical film drama Julia by Fred Zinnemann . The personification of eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes in the tragicomedy Melvin and Howard by Jonathan Demme earned him another nomination in 1981.

In 1981 he starred in the first version of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo , in which he had taken on the title role of the eccentric adventurer and opera lover Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald. When Robards fell ill and later refused to return to further filming in the jungle of Peru , Herzog cast Klaus Kinski for the role and made further changes in the line-up and role changes in this context. In the 1999 documentary My Dearest Feind , Herzog shows scenes with both Kinski and Robards as Fitzcarraldo.

From 1983 to 1988 Robards was then seen almost exclusively in television productions (for example in the drama about the effects of a fictitious nuclear war, The Day After, which was also shown in German cinemas ). At the theater he was on stage during this time in re-performances of his early successes The Ice Man Comes and One Long Day's Journey into the Night, thus cementing his reputation as a significant actor of concise characters in Eugene O'Neill plays. In 1993 Robards starred in Disney's The Adventures of Huck Finn with Elijah Wood , in Heidi, and in the AIDS drama Philadelphia with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington . In the following years he was seen in Crimson Tide , in A Thousand Morning after the novel of the same name by Jane Smiley and in The Public Enemy No. 1 in roles of elderly patriarchs or generals. In 1999 he played his last film role as media mogul Earl Partridge in Paul Thomas Anderson's episodrama Magnolia - a role that showed parallels to his own serious illness.

Private life and death

Jason Robards had two children with his last wife, Lois O'Connor. From previous marriages (including with Lauren Bacall ) he had four other children, including Sam Robards , who also worked as an actor . He was also the stepfather of producer and novelist Stephen Bogart . Robards died in December 2000 at the age of 78 after an extended period of lung cancer .

Since 2002 he has received the Jason Robards Award , a theater award from the Roundabout Theater Company in New York, in honor of him. The first prize winner was actor Christopher Plummer .

Filmography (selection)

Plays (selection)

  • 1953: American Gothic
  • 1956: Eugene O'Neill: Iceman Cometh (The Ice Cream Man is Coming)
  • 1956: Eugene O'Neill: Long Day's Journey into Night
  • 1958: Budd Schulberg / Harvey Breit: The Disenchanted
  • 1960: Lillian Hellman: Toys in the Attic (dolls under the roof)
  • 1962: Herb Gardner: A Thousand Clowns
  • 1964: Eugene O'Neill: Hughie
  • 1972: Clifford Odets: The Country Girl
  • 1973: Eugene O'Neill: A Moon for the Misbegotten (A moon for the laden)
  • 1977: Eugene O'Neill: A Touch of the Poet (Almost a Poet)
  • 1984: George S. Kaufman / Moss Hart: You Can't Take It With You
  • 1988: Eugene O'Neill: Ah, Wilderness! (O wilderness!)
  • 1991: Israel Horovitz: Park Your Car in Harvard Yard
  • 1994: Harold Pinter: No Man's Land

Awards

  • 1959 Tony Award for Best Actor in The Disenchanted
  • 1962 Best Actor Award at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival
  • 1976 Oscar for best supporting actor in The Untouchables
  • 1977 Oscar for best supporting actor in Julia
  • 1988 Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Series for Who Sows the Wind
  • 1999 Annual Kennedy Center Honors for Lifetime Contribution to Arts and Culture

Nominations

  • 1957 Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in One Long Day's Journey into the Night
  • 1960 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in Toys in the Attic
  • 1960 Tony Award nomination for best actor in After the Fall
  • 1972 Tony Award nomination for best actor in The Country Girl
  • 1974 Tony Award nomination for best actor A Moon for the Misbegotten
  • 1981 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Melvin and Howard

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jason Robards - the fallen Fitzcarraldo on stockpress.de
  2. ↑ USA TODAY
personal data
SURNAME Robards, Jason
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robards, Jason Nelson Jr. (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois , United States
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 2000
Place of death Bridgeport , Connecticut , United States