Actor Hal Holbrook, indelible portrayer of Mark Twain, dies at 95
Adam Bernstein
In a remarkable feat of theatrical longevity, actor Hal Holbrook, who died Jan. 23 at 95, played Samuel Clemens — better known as Mark Twain — in a solo show for nearly as long as the American humorist and iconoclast was alive.
“Mark Twain Tonight!” — which Mr. Holbrook conceived and debuted in 1954 — earned him a Tony Award on Broadway in 1966 and captivated more than 20 million viewers in a CBS telecast in 1967. Into his 90s, he was still crisscrossing the globe, weaving Twain’s stories and quips into a peppery monologue about mankind’s pretensions and vices.