He was 95 years old.
Holbrook portrayed iconic author Mark Twain in personal shows for more than six decades, winning the Tony Award for Best Actor in 1966 for his role in “Mark Twain Tonight!” which he also directed.
He performed the show all over the country and in Europe, becoming synonymous with the famous comedian.
Holbrook and his siblings were born in Cleveland, Ohio, the father of a mother vaudeville player and shoe salesman, who were raised by their grandparents in southern Weymouth, Massachusetts.
Sent to boarding school as a young man, and later to military school, he found solace in the costumes and characters he played in the theater club.
Holbrook first came up with the idea of doing the Twain show after portraying the author as part of an honorary project as a major drama at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.
While serving in the Army during World War II, she acted in amateur theater productions, including “Madam Precious” while stationed in Newfoundland.
There he met his first wife, actress Ruby Johnston, whom he married in 1945.
Back home, Holbrook got a steady gig on the daytime soap opera “The Brighter Day” and continued to perform his Twain show.
Ed Sullivan later took a performance and invited Holbrook to appear on his variety show in 1956.
Holbrook’s career on stage and screen was prodigious.
He made his Broadway debut in 1961 in “Do You Know the Milky Way?” and the Gran Via Blanca would become a family home, as it appeared in numerous productions over the years, including “Man of La Mancha,” “An American Daughter,” and – of course – “Mark Twain Tonight.”
He made his mark on the small screen with the 1972 television film “That Certain Summer,” in which he played a divorced father who comes out as a gay man.
Holbrook appeared in several other television productions such as the NBC miniseries “Lincoln,” which won him an Emmy in 1976, and the 1980s comedy “Designing Women,” which starred his wife, Dixie Carter.
His marriage to his first wife ended in divorce in 1965. The following year he married actress Carol Eve Rossen.
They divorced in 1983 and in 1984 she married Carter and remained married to her until her death due to endometrial cancer complications in 2010.
He also found success in movies.
Holbrook’s role as “Deep Throat” in the 1976 political film “All the President’s Men” gave the public something to hang on to as the real source who advised Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward (played by Robert Redford in the film) in which to become the Watergate scandal.
In 2008, her Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for her role as a retired widower in “Into the Wild” made Holbrook, 82, the then greatest performer ever nominated in that category at the time.
But it was Twain who Holbrook returned again and again.