Jason Robards, 1922-2000

What hurts most about the death of Jason Robards is that he was only 78, and I would have loved to see what he would have to do in the next ten years.

Many great character players have given us lovely gold in their eighties: Burns, Farnsworth, C. Aubrey Smith,

What is to say, but that I love Mr. Robards, so has my family, and ever since I was a kid. My brother, sister and I have been in love with this great old man since our early viewings of the classic Once Upon a Time in the West (for which we all own the Morricone soundtrack to).

He was the son of stage and film star Jason Robards Sr. When pressed, all I can really say about Jason Robards Sr is that he is the in the Cary Grant classic Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Jason Nelson Robards Jr. was born July 26, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois (he just died, on December 26, 2000, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, of, the Big C, cancer).

He also recieved the Navy Cross, and married was married to Lauren Bacall in the 1960s.

I'm not going to give you Robards' complete filmography -- it's too much -- but here's part of it: Magnolia (1999), Enemy of the State (1998), Beloved (1998), A Thousand Acres (1997), Crimson Tide (1995), Little Big League (1994), The Paper (1994), Philadelphia (1993), Quick Change (1990), Dream a Little Dream (1989), Parenthood (1989), The Good Mother (1988), Bright Lights, Big City (1988), Inherit the Wind (1988) for TV, Home Is Where the Heart Is (1987), O'Neill's You Can't Take it with You (1984) for TV, The Day After (1983) also for TV, Max Dugan Returns (1983), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), Melvin and Howard (1980), Bronson vehicle Caboblanco (1980), Hurricane (1979), Comes a Horseman (1978), an Oscar for Julia (1977) as Dashiell Hammett, an Oscar for All the President's Men (1976) as Ben Bradlee.

Before the Oscar double were: A Boy and His Dog (1975), Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), TV's The House Without a Christmas Tree (1972), Trumbo's (by saying "Trumbo's" need I say pretentious?) Johnny Got His Gun (1971), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Peckinpah's The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), as Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West (1969), Isadora (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), as Doc Holliday in Hour of the Gun (1967), as Capone in St. Valentine's Day Massacre, The (1967), Divorce American Style (1967), Any Wednesday (1966) -- not the surfing picture --, for television Peckinpah's Noon Wine (1966), A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966), A Thousand Clowns (1965), Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962), Tender Is the Night (1962), as Theodore "Hickey" Hickman in The Iceman Cometh.