Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 20, 1991 TAG: 9104200469
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Very few people had ever seen a picture of Abraham Lincoln and people didn't recognize him," explains Jason Robards, who plays Lincoln in the ABC movie "The Perfect Tribute."
"I thought at first it was too much when the boy runs into him on the street. But there were a lot of tall men with beards walking around Washington. Lincoln actually walked all over the place without being recognized."
"The Perfect Tribute" on Sunday (at 9 p.m. on WSET-Channel 13 in the Roanoke viewing area) tells a story about a disheartened and unpopular president who feels his Gettysburg Address is another failure in a war he seems to be losing. He crosses paths with a Southern boy who has come North to find his brother and needs a lawyer to prepare his will. At the end the chance encounter provides an emotional lesson in forgiveness.
"The story is really about the two brothers," Robards says. "Lincoln feels a kinship because his own son, Tad, is ill at the time. It's about understanding what living in peace is all about.
"The Christmas before I did this I got a book of Lincoln's letters and virtually everything he wrote. I didn't know I was going to be playing Lincoln. I'd read Carl Sandburg's biography while doing `Abe Lincoln in Illinois"' on television about 25 years ago.
In the recent PBS series on the Civil War, Robards provided the voice of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. He played Grant in "The Legend of the Lone Ranger."
His father, Jason Robards Sr., had played Lincoln's law partner William Herndon in D.W. Griffith's first sound film, "Abraham Lincoln."
Robards' career has overshadowed that of his father. The son has won Academy Awards as best supporting actor for his roles as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in "All the President's Men" and mystery writer Dashiell Hammett in "Julia."
His last feature film was "Quick Change," which also starred Bill Murray, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid.
After his role as Lincoln, Robards played another American historical figure. He was Mark Twain for the Disney Channel in a movie called "Mark Twain and Me." It tells of Twain's relationship with an 11-year-old girl in the last year of his life. It will be televised next fall.
"I had fabulous makeup for these two roles," he says. "It took four hours for Lincoln and an hour to get the makeup off."
Robards also stars in the ABC miniseries "An Inconvenient Woman," based on the book by Dominick Dunne, which is expected to be televised in May. He stars as the power broker.
by CNB