Losing Hal is a kick in the gut, and I don't have the energy to absorb
that news and write much at the same time, so I've pasted two texts
below. The first is extracted from a personal note I sent his assistant.
The second is my public tribute to Hal from the end of my essay on the
voice of Mark Twain, published in Mark Twain Journal:
I will be forever grateful that he found time to write a preface to Mark
Twain and Youth, and grateful to you for guiding that process along.
Donna and I will never forget the two hours of private conversation we
shared with him the morning after his performance in San Antonio a few
years ago. During that visit he explained that Dixie had "saved" him,
and I am grateful that they found each other when they did. He spoke
modestly of obstacles he'd overcome, and my admiration of him grew.
Others will rightly talk about his talents and his career, but I will
most remember his candor, kindnesses, and generosities. I assumed his
passion for life and his 20 minute morning exercise routine would carry
him beyond 100. I can just hear Hal laughing and asking me "You're
surprised a 95 year old guy has died? That's not exactly headline news!"
No, it isn't, but when a good soul passes our way, illuminating the sky,
and then is gone, it certainly is. We were lucky to have him.
From MTJ 57:2 (Fall 2019):
Many Twainians are aware that Gillette once performed in front of Twain,
but the entire story of that performance, including Twain’s reaction to
Gillette’s impersonation, seems to have escaped notice by Twain
scholars. On the evening of June 5, 1877, Gillette returned to Hartford
after touring with John T. Raymond in the play Col. Sellers, and
performed on stage at the Seminary Hall on Pratt Street. The first part
of his three-part program included his imitations of Raymond playing
Col. Mulberry Sellers and Anna Dickinson playing Anne Boleyn, and
telling “The Jumping Frog, giving an imitation of Mark Twain.” The
second and third parts of his program included impersonations of Edwin
Booth playing Hamlet and other dramatic vignettes. The next day Gillette
got high praise for his entire performance, but his impersonation of
Twain was singled out as “so well done that Mr. Clemens, who was
present, might have fancied that he was on the stage.” Apparently,
that’s precisely what Twain fancied, for when Gillette gave an emotional
speech to a Hartford Club luncheon in 1930, he “remembered high points
in his career” and told of Mark Twain’s remark to him after that 1877
performance, when Twain told him--no doubt in a slow drawl--that it was
“one more reason for being sorry I was born.” This was a typical Twain
compliment, and whether the “I” referred to Gillette or to Twain
himself, Gillette understood it for the compliment that it was, an
endorsement of a job well done.
[insert #14 Hal Holbrook, before & after]
Hal Holbrook began performing on the road with his first wife Ruby
toward the end of 1948 in Amarillo, Texas, and in 1949 he added Mark
Twain to their repertoire (Holbrook Mark 10). His first solo performance
in Mark Twain Tonight! occurred at State Teachers College in Lockhaven,
Pennsylvania on March 19, 1954 (Holbrook Mark 42), and the show
premiered off-Broadway on April 6, 1959. In 1966 he opened on Broadway
and won a Tony Award. The following year it premiered on CBS and he
received an Emmy for that TV special. By the time Holbrook retired from
My Mark Twain! in 2017, he had performed it more than 2,100 times. Sam
Clemens had been “Mark Twain” for forty-seven years, from 1863 to 1910;
Hal Holbrook was “Mark Twain” for sixty-eight years, from 1949 to 2017.
Despite the thirty-nine year interval between their careers there is
significant overlap between Clemens’s and Holbrook’s audiences: In the
1950s, 60s, and 70s, there were people still living who had heard
Clemens’s “Mark Twain” speak, and they sometimes showed up to see
Holbrook’s “Mark Twain” perform.
Of special interest to Twainians interested in the reconstruction of
Mark Twain’s voice, is Hal Holbrook’s serious research into that voice.
According to Holbrook, the only variation from Twain’s voice that he
allows himself is that he speaks faster than Twain--because Twain’s slow
pace would drive modern audiences to distraction—but it hardly seems
noticeable. Otherwise he has been meticulous. The story begins in 1956
when Holbrook was contacted by Yale University Professor Norman Holmes
Pearson, who wanted his opinion of a recording said to be by Twain.
Holbrook listened to the recording and immediately noticed that the
impersonator had a New England accent and seemed to speak at a faster
clip than Twain, and expressed his doubts (MTS 1996 xxxi-xxxii). Pearson
soon found out that the recording in question was the one Gillette had
made for Professor Packard at Harvard in 1936.
Some have pointed out that the Gillette impersonation is an
impersonation of Mark Twain impersonating the characters in the jumping
frog tale: Simon Wheeler at the beginning, then “one of the boys,” then
Parson Walker, and finally Jim Smiley at the very end. However, except
for the voice of Parson Walker, when Gillette’s own New England accent
becomes quite evident, the others speak in an identical slow drawl, and
the verdict of the newspaper reviewer in June 1877 confirms that
Gillette was producing an accurate rendition of Mark Twain’s voice when
telling this story.
The version that is now preserved at Yale is the one that Holbrook used
in styling his own impersonation of Twain, but he has also relied on
other sources. There was James B. Pond, Jr. (1889-1961), known as “Bim”
Pond, the son of James B. Pond (1838-1903), who had been Twain’s lecture
agent for his Twain-Cable tour (1884-1885) and his round-the-world
lecture tour (1895-1896), who was himself a talent agent. Bim had heard
Twain often when growing up, and actually demonstrated Twain’s drawl and
intonations when Holbrook visited his New York office. Bim especially
drawled out verbs and direct objects, and a long or short “a” in a word
was more likely to get drawled than other vowels (Holbrook Harold
209-210; Holbrook Mark 27-28, 36). A similar pattern can be heard in
Gillette’s impersonation. Holbrook also met Madame Charbonnel, who had
known Twain in Vienna (Holbrook Harold 362). In Hartford, Holbrook met
Miss Katharine Day, a descendant of Twain’s famous neighbor, Harriet
Beecher Stowe. Miss Day had been a playmate of Twain’s daughters, and
“her memories gave [him] some insight into the gracious side of
[Twain’s] character” (Holbrook Mark 70). In May 1958 Holbrook visited
Twain’s ninety-four -year-old secretary, Isabel Lyon, in her Greenwich
Village apartment. She propped herself up with a pillow, poured a
Scotch, and lit a pipe Twain had given her, and told Holbrook things
about Twain that he promised he would “never publish” (Trombley 260-61).
Shortly after that visit Holbrook wrote her a note expressing his
gratitude for being able to “listen to [her] talk about [Twain] and in
trying to absorb [her] feeling about him. That is more important to me
than any fact, though I’ll be after you with queries about them in the
future.” Holbrook paid her several more visits.
[insert #15 and #16, Holbrook’s letter to Lyon]
In November 1959 Caroline Harnsberger, an independent Twain scholar,
wrote to her friend Clara Clemens, telling her that “as you can see, I
am in the thick of the latest Twain excitement—the success of Hal
Holbrook in his recreation of your father.” She described her visit with
Holbrook, the experience of watching him apply his make-up before a
show, and described his stage presence before telling Clara that “he
told me that he has been booked for three weeks in Los Angeles . . . and
that he was hoping so much to be able to meet you.” Clara and Holbrook
finally met on April 12, 1961, and Clara reported back to Harnsberger
two days later that “I am really writing to say that Mr. Holbrook was
here day before yesterday and took us all “by storm.” He is certainly
all you said—and more too . . . . I would so like to see you soon and
discuss Mr. Holbrook and his eyes.” During his visit Clara suggested
that Holbrook should do an impersonation of Jesus Christ (Trombley 265).
When later asked to explain Clara’s fascination with his eyes, Holbrook
just grinned.
[insert #17 Clara writing about Holbrook]
There is, of course, one other intriguing theory of how Holbrook has
been able to replicate Mark Twain’s voice. Holbrook was born in
Cleveland, Ohio as Harold Holbrook, and as a child was sometimes called
Harry. In May 1872 Twain and his family paid a visit to Cleveland at the
invitation of Mary Mason “Mother” Fairbanks, the slightly older woman
who had befriended Twain during his Quaker City excursion, becoming a
lifelong friend and advisor. During their stay, Twain visited the
Cleveland Club and signed their guest register. The signature
immediately above Twain’s is that of a “Harry Holbrook.” Holbrook’s
association with Mark Twain therefore seems to have begun much earlier
than he has admitted. Some may quibble about the date, but this theory
would otherwise explain a lot.
[insert #18 1872 Cleveland Club guest register]
The landscape of Mark Twain’s literary voice is one of unfolding vistas
and enticing terrain: Short stories, interviews, travel narratives,
political satire, novels for readers young and old, interviews, poems,
public and private letters, letters written and dictated (and letters
never mailed), journals, annotations in his books in which he seems to
have anticipated a reader looking over his shoulder, and speeches. But
the landscape traversed in the search for the recovery or reconstruction
of Mark Twain’s physical voice is scarred with lost opportunities and
regrets, littered with tantalizing clues that repeatedly lead to rabbit
holes and box canyons, and its few meadows of fertile soil nourish hopes
and imaginings that may never bloom. Yet, in the impersonation of Mark
Twain by Hal Holbrook we have a voice that resonates with Twain’s aural
DNA, for in the beginning Twain begat Gillette, and when Twain saw
Gillette’s work he saw that it was good; Gillette begat Holbrook, and it
was good. Hal Holbrook is as close as we can come to a rendering of
Twain’s voice, and it’s closer than anyone has imagined until now.
In a letter written early in his career, dated February 21, 1956,
Holbrook wrote to a potential client about his portrayal of Mark Twain,
describing at length the content and other details of his show,
concluding with a declaration that would hold firm for the next sixty
years:
I never break character as Twain. I give the entire performance as Twain
would have given it –talking, acting out selections from his books,
commenting between on what struck his humor about people and things, and
what made him angry. I am extremely enthusiastic about the man and his
ideas and am eager to transfer it to audiences. I have the greatest
faith in Mark Twain’s material. I haven’t met anyone yet who couldn’t
carry a solid lesson away from it.
In all the years since writing that letter, Holbrook has spoken publicly
and written passionately about the truth and relevance of Mark Twain’s
words, and Twain’s role as the subversive savior of American culture—if
only America will listen. When Holbrook’s devotion to the serious truths
of Twain’s message is taken into account, it is not unreasonable to
imagine Howells calling Holbrook the Lincoln of Mark Twain
impersonators.
It must be remembered that “Mark Twain” is a fictional character, a
persona that was constructed and performed by Sam Clemens, just as
Shakespeare created his characters and very likely played some of them
on stage. But Shakespeare did not leave behind a body of literature
written by one of his characters, making that character’s voice
essential for an understanding of his plays. Holbrook has played the
role of Mark Twain as did Clemens, just as Sir Laurence Olivier played
the role of Hamlet, but nothing is riding on anyone’s portrayal of
Hamlet beyond the character of Hamlet himself. Any Twain impersonator
carries the entire body of Twain’s works upon his shoulders. Holbrook
has borne this immense burden gracefully and with passion. If by some
stroke of good fortune an authentic voice recording of Mark Twain ever
surfaces, it will no doubt sound like some damn fool trying to
impersonate Hal Holbrook. Even if that day never comes, the voice of
Mark Twain shall never be silent.
Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB, BSA
You can browse our books at:
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com
------ Original Message ------
From: "John R. Pascal" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 2/2/2021 7:39:52 AM
Subject: Hal Holbrook Is Now Truly with Mark Twain Forever
>https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/theater/hal-holbrook-dead.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/theater/hal-holbrook-dead.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage>
>
>Thank God six classes of The Writings of Mark Twain got to know him. One class got to meet him.
>Future classes will continue to study and appreciate him.
>
>John R. Pascal, M.B.A., M.A.
>Teacher of 9th, 11th Grade English Honors, & The Writings of Mark Twain Honors
>Seton Hall Preparatory School
>Contributing Author to Mark Twain and Youth
|
