LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Jason Robards: Eugene O'neill
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Jason Robards portrayed Hickey on Broadway in 1985. The production was at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. He had a long history of working with O'Neill plays and for many years he was considered *the* Hickey. Until Kevin Spacey came along. last year, Mr. Robards was one of the honorees of the Kennedy Center Honors and Kevin was one of the people there to honor him.
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After his discharge from the Navy in 1946, Robards returned home and confided to his father his growing interest in acting. The senior Robards urged his son to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in New York, which he himself had attended and now recommended to his son as an excellent place to learn the actor's craft. Although Robards's stay at AADA lasted only eight months, it was at the academy that he first met actress Colleen Dewhurst, who would play opposite him in a number of O'Neill plays in years to come. His first professional appearance was as the rear end of a cow in the Children's World Theatre production of Jack and the Beanstalk, hardly the most auspicious start to an acting career. Next up, Robards won a walk-on role in a D'Oyly Carte production of The Mikado on Broadway. A year later he enjoyed somewhat more substantive roles in the D'Oyly Carte productions of Iolanthe and The Yeoman of the Guard.
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Robards decided to get into acting after the war. His career started out slowly. He moved to New York City and found small parts there, first in radio and then on the stage. His big break was landing the starring role in José Quintero's 1956 off-Broadway production and the 1960 television film of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, as the philosophical salesman Hickey, winning an Obie Award for his performance. He ... played Hickey in a 1985 Broadway revival staged by Quintero, who directed Robards in Broadway productions of O'Neill's plays Long Day's Journey Into Night, Hughie, A Touch of the Poet and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He repeated his performance in Long Day's Journey Into Night in the 1962 film and televised his performances in A Moon for the Misbegotten and Hughie.
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Shortly after graduating from Hollywood High, Robards enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was trained as a radio operator. Stationed at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, he narrowly survived the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. For most of World War II, he served in the Pacific Theater, seeing action in a total of 13 sea battles, and was later awarded the Navy Cross. It was during his years in the Navy that Robards first began to show an interest in the theater, borrowing the plays of Eugene O'Neill from the ship's library and toying with the idea of a career as an actor.
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Jason Nelson Robards was an Academy, Emmy, and Tony Award winning American actor whose wizened, iconic quality kept him in the forefront of the acting profession for nearly fifty years. He made his name playing in the works of American dramatist Eugene O'Neill, and would regularly return to O'Neill's works throughout his career. Robards' versatility was such that he was cast to equal effect in common-man roles and as well-known historical figures.
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Part Two contains more personal recollections of Jason Robards. Several of Robards’ theatrical colleagues (Arvin Brown, Zoe Caldwell, Douglas Campbell, Blythe Danner, George Grizzard, the playwright A.R. Gurney, Shirley Knight, Paul Libin, Theodore Mann, Christopher Plummer, Kevin Spacey and Eli Wallach) recall their times with the actor. Wendy Cooper, president of the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, writes of Robards’ help to save O’Neill’s Bay Area home, Tao House. Lois McDonald and Sally Thomas Pavetti write of Robards’ visits to Monte Cristo Cottage, O’Neill’s boyhood home in New London, Connecticut. George Beecroft, Richard Allan Davison, and Daniel Larner recall seeing some memorable Robards performances and Margaret and Ralph Ranald recall two meetings with Robards.
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