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Mac Donnell Rare Books <[log in to unmask]>
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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

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