Mark Twain ..(1835-1910)...Below ..Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain
Mark Twain has been gone for nearly a century. Yet he is still very much alive for us in the many imitators who portray him.
Perhaps the most famous is Hal Holbrook. When I was a boy, I had an album of his. It said in the liner notes, he learned to speak like Twain by listening to some of the great mans recordings.......Let's screech the brakes here!!!!
There is not one recording existent in this world of Mark Twain!!! Not a one!!!!
So where did Mr Holbrook get the voice he uses...He made it up to fit the person he was portraying. It is quite good.....But is it like Twain???? Who the hell knows?
Mark Twain never made a commercial recording. Mark Twain did make a few personal recordings but they have long since been destroyed. He even made a recording for recording pioneer Bettini. But that has long since been destroyed.
There is nothing to know what he sounded like. Only good guesses. But our image of Mark Twain will always be as Hal Holbrook.
Now there are imitators imitating Holbrook! I have a feeling that Twain may have had a voice like Holbrooks, but he may have sounded like Col. Sanders too...No one knows..
So the next time you see someone imitating Mark Twain , tell them they did a great Hal Holbrook!
So I thought it would be good to note that it makes sense today to say that Mark Twain sounds just like Hal Holbrook.
Amazingly so!
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