said Robards, who usually played solemn roles, had a secret ambition to be a song-and-dance man.''He always wanted to do musicals,'' Reynolds told KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. ''This great actor wanted to just kick it up.''
Robards was born on July 26, 1922, in Chicago, to Jason Nelson Robards Sr., 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. After graduating in 1939, he enlisted in the Navy.
After six years as a sailor during World War II, he used the GI Bill in 1946 to enroll in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. He got some parts and drove a cab to support his family.
He earned his first critical acclaim in May 1956, when he appeared in Eugene O'Neill's ''The Iceman Cometh.'' He followed that with a gripping role in O'Neill's ''Long Day's Journey Into Night.'' He won a Tony for his role in ''The Disenchanted.''
After his film debut in 1959, as a Hungarian freedom fighter in ''The Journey,'' Robards said he preferred theater to the movies.
''Once you're on, nobody can say 'cut it.' You're out there on your own, and there's always that thrill of a real live audience,'' he told Newsweek in 1958.
Yet he went on to make more than 50 feature films, winning best supporting actor 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.
He was nominated for another Oscar in 1980 for his portrayal of Howard Hughes in ''Melvin and Howard.''
His most recent credits included ''Magnolia,'' a 1999 Oscar darkhorse starring Tom Cruise, and ''Going Home,'' released in 2000, co-starring country music star Clint Black.
Other films featuring Robards included ''Divorce American Style,'' 1967; ''Johnny Got His Gun,'' 1971; ''Comes a Horseman,'' 1978; and ''Philadelphia,'' 1994.
In 1997, he played a tyrannical land baron in ''A Thousand Acres,'' the film adaptation of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer-prize winning novel. Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Jason Leigh portrayed his daughters.
In 1999, Robards was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors for his distinguished contribution to the performing arts.
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 Fairfield, which he once called ''a quiet life on the water.''
''He was very warm and generous to allow his presence and name in charities around town,'' said Fairfield Selectman Kenneth Flatto. ''People knew him as a consummate gentleman who cared a lot about the community.''
Others remember him as inspirational.
Director Lanny Cotler worked with Robards in the 1998 Family Channel film ''Heartwood'' about the upheaval in northern California's redwood region. He said the actor inspired his young stars, including Hilary Swank, who won an Oscar for best actress the next year in ''Boys Don't Cry.''
''He was the most experienced actor on our cast and was by far the most flexible and the most willing to just give of himself beyond the call of the duty,'' Cotler said. ''It was just amazing to watch that man work.''
Robards 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. After a bad car accident in 1972, Robard's face had to be surgically reconstructed.
Robards sometimes rejected characterizations of him as America's premiere actor, saying in 1993: ''All I know about acting is that I just have to keep on doing it.''
Funeral arrangements were pending in Fairfield.
Actor Jason Robards Dies at 78 (2000-12-27)1 (11285)
