Who

Well, if you don’t know who Jason Robards is, you are in the right place. This whole website project is exploring his life as an actor and human being, so I'll try to keep this intro brief and sort of hit the highlights in a standard way, knowing we will be covering this territory in more detail. (I'll add links to that detail as I progress on the site.)

Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was born on July 26, 1922, in Chicago, Illinois, on the road while his father, Jason Robards, Sr., starred in the play Lightnin'. His mother, Hope "Maxine" Glanville, left the family when Jason was just four and his brother Glenn was two. In his childhood he survived parental alcoholism, financial loss, a Dickensian "home" for boys, and the Great Depression. As a young man he enlisted in the Navy and served nearly seven years of active duty in the Pacific during World War II, witnessing firsthand the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, surviving the sinking of the USS Northampton in the Battle of Tassafaronga, among many others.

After reading Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude on the USS Nashville, he decided to pursue a career as an actor upon return to civilian life. He married fellow actor Eleanore Pitman, with whom he had three children. After eight years of struggle and poverty, he broke through in O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh in 1956, which made him a major force in theatre and resurrected Eugene O'Neill as one of America's most important playwrights, three years after O'Neill's death.

For Jason as an actor, he always valued the theatre the most, and O'Neill was a significant force throughout his life. Robards acted in 23 Broadway plays and numerous off-Broadway productions throughout his career. Only a fraction of these have recordings. Robards was nominated for eight Tony Awards, and won Best Actor for The Disenchanted. He performed in plays written by O'Neill, Arthur Miller, William Shakespeare, Harold Pinter, Lillian Hellman and many more. Director José Quintero and actor Colleen Dewhurst were two of his theatrical soulmates, with whom he worked several times.

Robards was in at least 60 films, surely you've seen one? All the President's Men? Parenthood? Philadelphia? Once Upon a Time in the West? He worked with lauded directors such as John Ford, Alan Pakula, Jonathan Demme, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Ron Howard, Ridley Scott, Sidney Lumet, P.T. Anderson and I've probably missed a few.

His roles ranged far and wide: the angry son, the outlaw, the charming deadbeat, the desert rat, the military captain, doctors good and evil, the patriarch, a clutch of grumpy old men, someone who switches bodies with a teen, and even a man who tried to become a tree in Mr. Sycamore. (You'll have to watch it to know if he succeeded.)

Robards portrayed at least five US presidents, Lincoln twice. He played many other 'real-life' people, such as Ben Bradlee, Clarence Darrow, writers Dashiell Hammett and F. Scott Fitzgerald, o.g. crazy billionaire Howard Hughes, Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov and probably some more I have forgotten or will stumble across.

And Robards was in at least 60 television shows, in the days of live theatrical television in the 50s, and later when TV movies were a big thing. The Day After, about a nuclear bomb detonating in Lawrence, Kansas, is still the most-watched TV special of all time. He was nominated for four Emmy Awards, and won Best Actor for his portrayal of Clarence Darrow in Inherit the Wind, a classic retelling of the famous Scopes "monkey" trial.

He narrated many well-known documentaries, by Ken Burns and others, and one – Schizophrenia: Voices of an Illness – won a Peabody Award.

There were four marriages and six children, 10 grandchildren. There was the alcoholism, and car accident, and recovery. His most famous marriage was to Lauren Bacall, often called "The Widow Bogart" around our house. Three of his sons are professional actors – Jason III, Sam, and Jake. One daughter, Sarah, acts and directs in community theatre. A granddaughter, Laura, is a working actor in New York.

I'm his fifth child. My mom, Lois, and my dad married in 1970 (Mom's first marriage and Dad's fourth 😬), and I came along in 1971.

Relevant biographical bits of my life will be included in the course of this project, so here I will cover a couple topics which might qualify me to undertake this retrospective, beyond being born into the family. I, too, have been in "the business" but not in front of the camera.

Film Fanatic

Most of my life, I've been a passionate filmgoer. Perhaps it started with Dad showing us movies like Beau Geste and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'll write a post about movies that Dad showed us later. They were never movies he was in. Some were classics, some were weird.

Those films surely whet my appetite for old Hollywood movies, and by high school I was obsessed, often foregoing popular modern films in favor of the oldies. In the 80s, for me it was Breakfast at Tiffany's rather than The Breakfast Club, tho' I can today admit that The Breakfast Club is an equally iconic movie.

My friends can attest that I've gone through periods of fascination with certain filmmakers: Alfred Hitchcock, Agnes Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Steven Soderbergh, Jane Campion, Claire Denis, Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai are directors whom I admire among many others. I've gone through obsessions with actors like Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Vivien Leigh, Montgomery Clift, Judy Holliday, Bette Davis. And, I'm not all seriousness – one of my favorite recent comedies is Booksmart, and I will rewatch Born Yesterday, Strictly Ballroom or Bridesmaids anytime.

Movie Maker

A logical continuation of my love of movies, most of my career has been in the construction of films, primarily editing documentaries.

After graduating from college, my first job was as an apprentice editor on Ken Burns' BASEBALL documentary, where I had been a student intern for over a year. Subsequently, I worked my way up the editing ladder on many projects, and was one of several editors on Ken Burns' JAZZ.

In my travels I got to work on a some independent films, including a National Geographic special about volcanos called…Volcano!, and helped edit the movie shown at the White House millennium ceremony. I made a couple of short movies myself, one broadcast on Vermont Public Television called Golgonooza.

I married, and spent several years working full-time as a mom to my three amazing children, who are now young adults. During that intensive parenting time, I did a lot of nonprofit work, both as a volunteer and later as a communications director when I returned to work outside the home. (Check out the Untours Foundation, a truly amazing and innovative nonprofit.) At a certain point, I decided to turn back to moviemaking, and since about 2017 I've been a freelance video editor and producer, primarily for nonprofit and educational organizations.

Most recently, I've had a different full-time job, as a chronically ill person. Since May of 2021, I've been essentially disabled with chronic intractable migraines, Common Variable Immune Deficiency and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, sometimes abbreviated as ME/CFS. ME is a poorly-studied disease which is finally getting some research and attention because of the millions struck by Long Covid. Both Long Covid and ME are complex multisystem post-viral diseases that are often severely disabling, without established treatment, let alone a cure. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say I've been unable to work in the ways I used to, and unable to live the way I used to. So this project is my "pivot" – a very flexible endeavor, but something meaningful to put my extremely limited energy towards.

I live with my wonderful partner and our blended family of children and cats in the Philadelphia area.

For more on the project, see Why.