My Favorite Jason Robards Performances

16.

Coleman Ettinger, Dream a Little Dream




Robards stole the show here in another "body switch" comedy from the 80's playing a grumpy scientist who switches bodies with a rock-star-wanna-be (Corey Feldman).

15.

Leland Hayward, Haywire



Robards was electrifying in tis CBS mini-series based on Brooke Hayward's book about her parents, producer Leland Hayward (Robards) and his wife, actress Margaret Sullivan (Lee Remick).

14.

John Cleves, Any Wednesday



Robards offered one of his greasier characterizations as a wealthy businessman who finds his romance with his attractive mistress (Jane Fonda) complicated by a business rival (Dean Jones) and his wife (Rosemary Murphy).

13.

Henry Drummond, A Big Hand for the Little Lady



Robards is a lot of fun in this western for people who hate westerns as a man who walks out of his daughter's wedding for an annual huge stakes poker game that takes some surprising missteps.

12.

Nelson Downs, Divorce American Style



Robards was a lot of fun in this comedy written by Norman Lear playing a divorced man who tries to get out of the financial ruin his divorce put him in by fixing up a recently separated husband (Dick Van Dyke) with his ex-wife (Jean Simmons).

Thanks....

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Hoping Max Dugan makes an appearance but not counting on it at this point. That was my introduction to Robards so it has a little sentimental value. He'll always be Max Dugan to me.

Rest assured, this list would be incomplete without Max Dugan...that movie is one of my guilty pleasures.

I haven't seen a lot of Jason Robards movies, but Max Dugan would be high on my list.

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11.

Jamie Tyrone, Long Day's Journey into Night



Robards was the only actor from the original Broadway production allowed to reprise his role in the film version of this Eugene O'Neill play as an alcoholic former actor spending the summer with his alcoholic father (Ralph Richardson), a mother addicted to morphine (Katharine Hepburn) and a young brother dying of consumption (Dean Stockwell).

10.

Howard Hughes, Melvin and Howard



The only one of Robards' three Oscar-nominated performances for which he didn't win the statue. Despite only about ten minutes screentime, Robards earned a supporting actor nomination playing the reclusive billionaire that Melvin Dummar picks up on the side of the road and gives him a ride. A few years later, Dummar receives word that Hughes left him $156 million dollars in his will.

9.

Frank Elgin, The Country Girl



Robards was excellent in this TV remake of the 1954 Best Picture nominee playing an alcoholic former actor terrified about a possible comeback.

8.

Charles Wheeler, Philadelphia



Robards gave us one of his nastiest characters with just the right underlayer of slickness playing the owner of a prestigious law firm who fires a bright young associate (Oscar winner Tom Hanks) when he learns the young man is gay and has contracted AIDS.

7.

Hickey, The Iceman Cometh



Robards and Eugene O'Neill once again make a formidable team in this 1960 TV adaption of O'Neill's play about an alcoholic traveling salesman who decides to fix the lives of his fellow barflies.

6.

Raymond Paine, The Night They Raided Minsky's



Robards gave an effectively layered performance in this comedy classic as a baggy-pants burlesque comic who competes with his stage partner (Norman Wisdom) for the affections of an amish woman (Britt Eckland) who wants to be in show business.

5.

Dashiell Hammet, Julia



Robards won his second consecutive Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his breezy performance as the legendary author who is having an on again off again affair with playwright Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda).

4.

Murray, A Thousands Clowns




Robards reprised another Broadway role based on a play by Herb Gardner. He plays an unemployed writer who wants nothing to do with reality or the conventional who has to wake up when a pair of social workers (Barbara Harris, William Daniels) threaten to take his nephew (Barry Gordon, also reprising his stage role) from him, the boy's illegal caregiver..

3.

Max Dugan, Max Dugan Returns



Seriously toyed with making this one #1 on the list but cooler heads prevailed...Robards is perfection as an ex-con and absentee father who tries to make amends with his daughter (Marsha Mason) and his grandson (Matthew Broderick, his film debut) by showing up at their house in the middle of the night...with a suitcase containing $687,000 dollars that he stole. Robards has some really lovely moments in this one, masterful performance which could have easily been phoned in by a lesser actor, but not by this guy.

2.

Ben Bradlee, All the President's Men



Robards won the first of back to back Supporting Actor Oscars for his performance in this 1976 Best Picture Nominee. Robards played WASHINGTON POST editor Ben Bradlee who, in my favorite scene in the movie, told Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) that if they're about to call the most powerful man in the country a crook, they better get it right.


And now..my # 1 favorite Jason Robards performance:

1.

Cable Hogue, The Ballad Of Cable Hogue



For years, I had never heard a conversation about the actor and this film did not come up at some point. I never saw it until a week or so after beginning this list and you see where it placed. This film and Robards' performance are nothing short of magical. Robards plays an old prospector who is robbed and left for dead in the desert. At death's door, he discovers water and turns the location into a rest stop for stagecoach travelers while finding romance with an actual hooker with a heart of gold (Stella Stevens).





Hope someone enjoyed the list