While Ed Asner’s character, Rufus, fleeces elderly widows in “New Tricks in the Old Dogs,” another senior schemer is up to darker deeds. Military veteran Red Hudmore is the new resident at the senior center where Brennan and Booth are investigating the death of a former client. Initially, Red serves as Rufus’s alibi by claiming that the two watched television together at the time of the murder, but as the team digs deeper, they discover that Red’s past makes him a prime suspect.
Red was played by five-time Emmy winner Hal Holbrook, who rose to fame in the late 1950s with his Tony-winning performance in his one-man play “Mark Twain Tonight!” He remained remarkably active on television and stage and in films for the next five decades, tackling supporting roles in “All the President’s Men,” “Wall Street,” “The Firm,” and “Into the Wild,” which netted him an Oscar nomination in 2017. He was also a frequent recurring performer on television, including “Designing Women” with his wife, Dixie Carter, “The West Wing,” and “Sons of Anarchy,” and starred opposite Burt Reynolds on “Evening Shade” from 1990 to 1994.
Holbrook, who received a National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush in 2003, died at his home in Beverly Hills, California on January 23, 2021 at the age of 95.