Jason Robards, Sr.

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Jason Robards, Sr. (b. December 31, 1892, Hillsdale, Michigan — d. April 4, 1963, Sherman Oaks, California) was a stage and screen actor, and the father of Oscar-winning actor Jason Robards, Jr..

Robards, Sr. had a film career which lasted from 1921 through 1961, where he was billed as Jason Robards, Sr. after his son became famous. His Broadway credits include the musical Turn To The Right (1917). After 1951, Robards' career consisted entirely of television performances, but prior to that, the Internet Movie Database lists appearances in 208 movies over a 30-year span before he spent another decade acting in various television shows and series.

Robards' best known stage role was John Marvin in the long-running hit Lightnin'. Robards' connection to the part caused his son to equate him to the character of James Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night, which Jason, Jr. played on Broadway in 1956. In the play, Tyrone is an actor whose career is limited by his identification with a single part, The Count of Monte Cristo. Jason, Jr. would later say "One of the most damaging things for me, I realize now, was playing a drunk in the play Long Day's Journey Into Night. In the play, the drunk's father is a failed artist and his mother was a drug addict. It was only after years of analysis I realized I was acting out events in my own life on stage." ^[1]

Father and son acted on stage together only once, in Budd Schulberg's The Disenchanted, a play inspired by the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jason, Jr. won his only Tony Award for his performance.

Jason Robards, Sr. died, aged 70, in Sherman Oaks, California.