Jason Robards' rise to fame

Jason Robards was born on 26 July, 1922, in Chicago, to Jason Nelson Robards Sr, a prominent actor.

He went on to star in more than 50 feature films, winning Oscars for best supporting actor as Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee in All the President's Men in 1976, and as novelist Dashiell Hammett in Julia the following year.

But despite his father's appearance in 170 films, the schoolboy initially took no interest in acting.

Instead, Robards joined the football, basketball and track teams at Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, and following his graduation in 1939, joined the Navy.

Robards in his last major film, Magnolia

His interest in this career did not last, however. After six years as a sailor during World War II, he used the GI Bill in 1946 to enrol in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

He supported his family with his acting roles and the money he earned as a cab-driver.

Critical acclaim did not come until 10 years later in 1956, when he appeared in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, shown on television.

This was followed with O'Neill's acclaimed Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Robards then won a Tony award for his role in The Disenchanted.

Robards won his first Oscar for All the President's Men

He finally hit the big screen in 1959 with his film debut as a Hungarian freedom fighter in The Journey.

He said afterwards that he preferred theatre to the movies.

"Once you're on, nobody can say 'cut it'," he said. "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, receiving a further Oscar nomination in 1980 for his portrayal of Howard Hughes in Melvin and Howard.

But it was not all plain sailing.

Arts award

Robards admitted to having 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.

But his hard work was recognised when in 1999 he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honours for his distinguished contribution to the performing arts.

His most recent credits included 1999's Oscar-winning Magnolia and Going Home, released in 2000, co-starring country music star Clint Black.

Robards was also in Philadelphia, which won Tom Hanks an Oscar for his role as a gay lawyer with Aids who fights his dismissal from a prestigious Philadelphia law firm.

'Quiet life'

And in 1997 Robards 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.

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".

Robards sometimes rejected characterisations of him as America's first actor, saying in 1993: "All I know about acting is that I just have to keep on doing it."