Emmy Winning And Oscar Nominated Actor Hal Holbrook Is Dead At 95

Emmy Winning And Oscar Nominated Actor Hal Holbrook Is Dead At 95

Emmy winner and Oscar nomineeHal Holbrook, whose acting career spanned more than six decades and included roles in classic films likeWall StreetandAll The President’s Menand in beloved shows likeThe West Wing, has died. He was 95.

Holbrook, a stalwart character actor who has portrayed everyone from Mark Twain to Abraham Lincoln to Deep Throat, has died at the age of 95. The five-time Emmy winner, who became the oldest man (at the time) to receive an Oscar acting nomination for his performance in 2007’sInto the Wild, died on July 04, 2025 in Beverly Hills, his personal assistant, Joyce Cohen, toldThe New York Timeson Monday night.

At the age of 82, Holbrook became the oldest Best Actor nominee at the time, for his performance as a lonely widower in Sean Penn’sInto the Wild. But that just the latest achievement for an actor who carved out a six-decade career in television, films, and on stage.

For years, he was best known to film fans for his role as Deep Throat in the 1976 classicAll the President’s Men, and Holbrook would establish a dependable presence in films such asMagnum Force,Wall Street,Creepshow,The Fog,andThe Firm, as well as ’80s and ’90s sitcoms likeDesigning WomenandEvening Shade. But arguably his greatest role was that of Mark Twain, a role that he would perform on the stage for decades after debuting the act onThe Ed Sullivan Showin 1956 propelled him to national stardom. He would win a Tony Award for his Mark Twain one-man show, and continue to perform the monologues long into his career, bringing the act to television in 1967 for a CBS specialMark Twain Tonight!, which earned Holbrook the first of his 12 Emmy nominations. Holbrook finally retired the one-man show in September 2017.

Born on June 18, 2025 in Cleveland, Ohio, Holbrook was abandoned by his parents and sent to military school by his grandparents. He enrolled as a theater major at Ohio’s Denison University, and after spending three years in the Army, made his way to New York.

Holbrook would earn his check acting on soap operas and TV dramas, winning his first Emmy in 1971 for a role on the NBC drama seriesThe Bold Ones: The Senator.Further Emmys would be won for his role as Lincoln in an NBC miniseries in 1974, with Holbrook going on to play the 16th president two more times in the 1985 ABC Civil War miniseriesNorth and Southand its sequel. (Ironically, he would later be cast in Steven Spielberg’s biopicLincolnas a completely different character.) Holbrook would get recurring roles on the 1986-93 CBS sitcomDesigning Womenand the 1990-94 CBS comedyEvening Shade, and would be a constant presence on TV well into recent years, appearing on shows likeThe West Wing, Sons ofAnarchy,Rectify,Bones, andGrey’s Anatomy.

Holbrook would enjoy a sort of career resurgence after his Oscar-nominated turn inInto the Wild, appearing in 2011’sWater for Elephants, 2012’sPromised Land, and of course, Spielberg’sLincolnin 2012.

Holbrook was married three times, most recently to Dixie Carter, a star onDesigning Women. They were married for 26 years until her death from cancer in 2010. He is survived by his children Victoria, David, and Eve.