Robards, Jason Nelson

▪ 2001

      American actor (b. July 26, 1922, Chicago, Ill.—d. Dec. 26, 2000, Bridgeport, Conn.), was one of the most distinguished and well-respected stage and screen performers of the second half of the 20th century. He was especially noted for his interpretations of roles in the plays of Eugene O'Neill and was credited with having enhanced O'Neill's reputation and having helped secure his position in theatrical history. Robards enlisted in the navy in 1939 after graduating from high school. He was serving in the South Pacific when the U.S. entered World War II, participated in 13 major engagements, and was awarded the Navy Cross. Following the war—at the urging of his father, actor Jason Robards, Sr.—he enrolled (1946) at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Robards took a number of odd jobs while seeking to launch his acting career and had a few small parts in stage productions, and in 1953 director José Quintero gave him a lead role in an Off-Broadway play, American Gothic. His career did not take off, however, until Quintero offered Robards a small part in a 1956 revival of O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. When the lead role of Hickey had not been cast, Robards asked to read for it, and by the time he had finished one monologue, it was clear that he could totally inhabit the role. That production made Robards a star and began the revival of O'Neill's reputation. Robards and Quintero further collaborated on Broadway productions of the O'Neill plays Long Day's Journey into Night (1956), Hughie (1964), A Moon for the Misbegotten (1973), and A Touch of the Poet (1977), and Robards revisited some of those roles in later revivals. Robards also starred in such Broadway hits as The Disenchanted (1958), for which he won a Tony Award in 1959; Toys in the Attic (1960); A Thousand Clowns (1962); After the Fall (1964); and No Man's Land (1994). While live theatre was his first love, Robards also had an extensive film and television career. Among his motion pictures were film versions of two of his Broadway successes, Long Day's Journey into Night (1962) and A Thousand Clowns (1965), and two for which he won Academy Awards for best supporting actor, All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977). Other notable film performances came in The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), Melvin and Howard (1980), Philadelphia (1993), and Magnolia (1999). Robards was presented the National Medal of Arts in 1997 and a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999.

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