Hal Holbrook

Hal Holbrook, the craftsman who reincarnated Mark Twain on stage and screen for more than six decades and also stood out as Abraham Lincoln and Deep Throat, two other American legends, has died. He was 95.

Normally, I don't comment on celebrity passings. I tend to be of the opinion that master plumber are more important than movie actors.

But I'm making an exception for Mr. Holbrook. I saw his one-man Mark Twain show a very long time ago. A nice touch was, when starting one of the acts, he puffed smoke from his cigar from behind the curtain at stage left. It got a laugh.

What reading that I've done of Mark Twain was because my interest was sparked by his portrayal. He was, to my mind, Mr. Twain. One of the pieces Mr. Holbrook did during the show was from "Advice to Youth":

Don't meddle with old unloaded firearms. They are the most deadly and unerring things that have ever been created by man. You don't have to take any pains at all with them; you don't have to have a rest, you don't have to have any sights on the gun, you don't have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his mother every time at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old rusty muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it makes me shudder.

I was able to use that to good effect in a legal case, which pissed the hell out of the other lawyer.