Answer an Elder: Jason Robards – a famous non-relation

Jason Robards – a famous non-relation.

information from Wikipedia

There were actually 3 Jason Robards who were actors. The famous one in no. 2.
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr., (July 26, 1922 – December 26, 2000) was an American actor and a WWII U.S. Navy combat veteran. (go to Wikipedia to read about his WWII adventures)

Robards decided to get into acting after the war. His career started out slowly. He moved to New York City and found small parts there, first in radio and then on the stage.

His big break was landing the starring role in José Quintero's 1956 off-Broadway production and the 1960 television film of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, as the philosophical salesman Hickey, winning an Obie Award for his performance. He also played Hickey in a 1985 Broadway revival staged by Quintero, who directed Robards in Broadway productions of O'Neill's plays Long Day's Journey Into Night, Hughie, A Touch of the Poet and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He repeated his performance in Long Day's Journey Into Night in the 1962 film and televised his performances in A Moon for the Misbegotten and Hughie.

Robards also appeared on stage in a 1988 Broadway revival of O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! directed by Arvin Brown, as well as Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic, Arthur Miller's After the Fall, Clifford Odets' The Country Girl and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land.

He made his film debut in the 1946 two-reel comedy Follow That Music, but after his Broadway success he was invited to make his feature debut in The Journey in 1959. He became a familiar face to movie audiences throughout the 1960s, notably for his performances in A Thousand Clowns (1965) (repeating his stage performance), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Jason Robards, Jr became famous playing works of American dramatist Eugene O'Neill, and would regularly play O'Neill's works throughout his career. Robards was cast in both common-man roles and as well known historical figures including three different US Presidents - Abraham Lincoln in The Perfect Tribute and a television production of Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Ulysses S. Grant in The Legend of the Lone Ranger (a role he also voiced in the PBS miniseries The Civil War), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in FDR: The Final Years. He also created a sensation as the fictional president Richard Monckton (based on Richard Nixon) in the television miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors. Robards received eight Tony Award nominations, more than any other male actor, and won in 1959 as Best Actor for his work in The Disenchanted, which was also his only stage appearance with his father. Robards received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in consecutive years for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977), He was also nominated for another Oscar for his role in Melvin and Howard (1980) and received the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for the 1988 production of Inherit the Wind.[10] He was among the recipients at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999

He had 6 children by 4 marriages including Jason Nelson Robards III and Sam Robards who also became actors.