Summary

TAPE_NUMBER: EF00/1447 IN_TIME: 04:21:54 - 07:39:10 - 10:20:49 LENGTH: 01:48 SOURCES: All APTN except shots 9- 10 AP STILLS; shots 3- 5 = ABC; shots 1- 2 = NEW LINE RESTRICTIONS: FEED: VARIOUS (THE ABOVE TIME-CODE IS TIME-OF-DAY) SCRIPT: English/Nat XFA Jason Robards, the veteran stage and screen actor who won back-to-back Oscars for \"All the President's Men\" and \"Julia,\" died on Tuesday after a battle with cancer. He was 78. Robards died at the Bridgeport Hospital in the U-S state of Connecticut. Robards started out as a stage actor in the 1950s, gaining critical acclaim for his performances in Eugene O'Neill plays, including \"The Iceman Cometh\" and \"Long Day's Journey Into Night.\" He won a Tony award for his performance in \"The Disenchanted.\" He made his film debut in 1959, playing a Hungarian freedom fighter in \"The Journey.\" After the film was shot, Robards said he preferred theatre to the movies. Yet he went on to make more than 50 feature films, winning Academy Awards for his portrayal of Washington Post Executive Editor, Ben Bradlee, in \"All the President's Men\" in 1976 and novelist Dashiell Hammett in \"Julia\" the following year. Modern movie audiences knew Robards for his portrayal of Bradlee in the story of the Watergate scandal. His other films included: \"Divorce American Style,\" 1967; \"Julius Caesar,\" 1970; \"Johnny Got His Gun,\" 1971; \"Comes a Horseman,\" 1978; \"Melvin and Howard,\" 1980; and \"Philadelphia,\" 1994. In 1997, he played the tyrannical land baron father in \"A Thousand Acres,\" the film adaptation of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer-prize winning novel. He also appeared in \"Beloved\", in 1998, \"Enemy of the State\", in 1998, and in \"Magnolia\", in 1999. In 1999, Robards was one of five performers selected to receive the Kennedy Centre Honours. Despite his prolific film work, Robards stayed loyal to the theatre. Robards, who was known as a classical actor, shunned the notion of \"method\" acting and actors who look for motivation for their stage work. Robards was born Jason Nelson Robards Junior on 26 July, 1922, in Chicago, the son of a prominent actor. Despite his father's prolific career in more than 170 movies, the young Robards had no interest in acting while he was growing up. At Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, Robards was on the baseball, football, basketball and track teams, and thought about becoming a professional athlete. After graduating in 1939, he went on active duty with the U-S Naval Reserve as an apprentice seaman. While serving in the Pacific, Robards read some plays by O'Neill and told his father he wanted to try his hand at acting. At his father's urging, Robards enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1946. In 1953, director Jose Quintero gave him the male lead in Victor Wolfson's \"American Gothic,\" which opened off-Broadway. He earned his first critical acclaim in May 1956, when he appeared in \"The Iceman Cometh\" at the Circle in the Square, again under Quintero's direction. Robards played Hickey, the salesman who forces the characters to accept death. Robards was married four times - including once to Lauren Bacall - and had six children. In his later years, he lived with his wife of more than 30 years, Lois, in what he once called \"a quiet life on the water\" in nearby Fairfield. After a bad car accident in 1972, Robard's face had to be surgically reconstructed. He said that he had had bouts of depression during his life and was once a heavy drinker. He said he gave up alcohol in 1974. He sometimes rejected characterisations of him as America's leading actor, and was quoted in 1993 as saying \"All I know about acting is that I just have to keep on doing it.\" SOUNDBITE: (English) \"It goes in to the human condition very much. Estrangement and the fact that the parents are, Tom Cruise plays my son, and the fact that they're estranged since he was 14. All these sort of things that are, that we find familiar in life.\" SUPER CAPTION: Jason Robards SOUNDBITE: (English) \"Everyone of us who has ever had to give a significant number of public speeches has wished at some moment in his life that he had a voice like Jason Robards.\" SUPER CAPTION: President, Bill Clinton SHOTLIST: Various New Line Cinema 1. Trailer of Magnolia, with Robards 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Jason Robards speaking about his role in Magnolia ABC - Washington - 29 September 1997 3. Awards ceremony 4. SOUNDBITE (English) US President, Bill Clinton 5. Robards receiving his award and shaking hands with Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton APTN - Washington, USA - 5 December, 1999 6. Award recipients on stage 7. Pan, front left: Stevie Wonder, Jason Robards 8. Robards being escorted from stage AP STILLS Waterford, USA - 21 October, 2000 (AP Photo/New London Day, Tim Martin) 9. Robards speaking while receiving the Monte Cristo Award for "distinguished artistic achievement in the spirit of Eugene O'Neill's pursuit of excellence" at the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Centre AP STILLS Los Angeles - 12 March, 2000 (AP Photo/Michael Caulfield) 10. Robards receiving a standing ovation as he takes the stage at the 6th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. FILM COMPANY UNKNOWN 11. Robards and Sir John Gielgud in "Julius Caesar"?