Robert Duvall, who won an Oscar for “Tender Mercies” and was nominated for “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “The Great Santini,” has died. He was 95 years old.
Duvall’s death was announced on Facebook through a statement from his wife, Luciana Duvall.
“Yesterday we said goodbye to our beloved husband, dear friend, and one of the greatest actors of our time,” she wrote. “Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and peace. To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, director, and storyteller. To me, he was everything.”
“His passion for the arts was matched only by his deep love for his characters, his great food, and his holding of court. In each of his many roles, Bob gave his all to his characters and the truths of the human spirit they represented. In doing so, he left a lasting and unforgettable legacy on all of us. Thank you for the support you have shown Bob over the years and for allowing us this time and privacy to celebrate the memories he left behind.”
Duvall’s rugged naturalism came to define the acting style of a generation that included Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Gene Hackman, appearing in films such as Network and The Apostle, which he also directed.
He may never have been as big a star as De Niro, but his unflattering ability to fully embrace the characters he played earned him respect from both colleagues and critics. As Francis Ford Coppola once told the New York Times, at one point “it’s hard to tell the difference between a leading man and a great character actor.”
Although he was an actor among actors with seven Oscar nominations, he also showed his talent in television shows such as “Lonesome Dove” and “Broken Trail,” earning him a total of five Emmy nominations and winning two.
His first big screen appearance, and one of his most memorable roles, was as the fearsome Boo Radley in 1962’s “A Tale of Alabama.” Despite getting off to a strong start, Duvall’s career took a while to get off the ground, but by the early to mid-’70s he was coming into his own, combining seamless character-acting abilities with occasional strong forays into bigger roles.
In 1969, he teamed up with young director Francis Ford Coppola on the intimate drama The Rain People, and the following year he played Frank Burns in Robert Altman’s MASH. He also appeared in George Lucas’ experimental film THX 1138. And the actor had an interesting job on stage.
But the game-changer was 1972’s The Godfather, in which he played the long-suffering and cunning consigliere Tom Hagen, a role that earned him his first Oscar nomination. He reprized the role of Hagen in 1974’s The Godfather Part II. He also appeared in Coppola’s The Conversation and as Dr. Watson in Herbert Ross’ The Seven Percent Solution.
In 1976, he played a memorable role as a ruthless TV executive in Network, and three years later he earned his second Oscar nomination for his role as Colonel Kilgore in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, where he delivered the memorable line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
In 1977, he and Ur Grosbard produced David Mamet’s American Buffalo on Broadway to mixed reviews. That same year, he made a country documentary called “We’re Not Jet Set,” and in the early ’80s he directed the closely observed, small-scale “Angelo, My Love.”
But it was in The Great Santini, in which he played the title character’s harsh, militaristic father, that he established his credentials as a leading role in a film, for which he received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination in 1980. The following year, at the Venice Film Festival, she received praise for her role opposite Robert De Niro in “True Confessions.”
And in 1984, his quiet, detailed performance in Tender Mercies, written by Horton Foote and directed by Bruce Beresford, won him an Oscar for Best Actor.
But after that, he often earned top pay for co-lead or co-lead roles in films such as The Natural, Colors, Days of Thunder, Rambling Rose, Geronimo: An American Legend, and Deep Impact.
Duvall gained a lot of attention when he directed and headlined the 1997 film The Apostle. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for his role as a womanizing Texas preacher who must start anew after committing an act of violence. At the Independent Spirit Awards, Apostle won Best Picture and Duvall was nominated twice as an actor and director.
Duvall was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor the following year for his role as a brilliant but eccentric lawyer who becomes John Travolta’s nemesis in the courtroom drama Civic Action.
Other productions included the Nicolas Cage action film “Gone in Sixty Seconds” and the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi thriller “The Sixth Day.” For sports photography, “A Shot for Glory,” I tried my hand at Scottish brogues and the hostage drama “John Q.”
Duvall wrote, directed and starred in “Assassination Tango,” a mysterious 2003 film about a hitman with obsessive tendencies who is sent to Argentina to have affairs with dancers.
He returned to the Western genre in Kevin Costner’s 2003 film Open Range, then played General Robert E. Lee in Gods and Generals, and starred in Second Hand Lions, a short film in which he and Michael Caine played the eccentric great-uncle to a young Haley Joel Osment, making each other laugh.
Duvall played a gruff cop in James Gray’s We Own the Night, but Duvall enjoyed satirizing notoriously gruff characters in bit roles in Four Christmases and the 2005 satire Thank You for Smoking.
The actor didn’t slow down even as his 80th birthday approached. In 2009, she appeared in John Hillcoat’s The Road. He starred in the small but popular “Get Low,” playing a bearded hermit who, in Roger Ebert’s words, was “a sly old good-looking guy.” Participating as support, he produced “Crazy Heart,” which is reminiscent of Duvall’s “Tender Mercies.”
The actor reunited with Lonesome Dove screenwriter Bill Wittliff in 2014’s A Night in Old Mexico, and starred in the same year’s The Judge as a lawman accused of hit-and-run murder and defended by his son (Robert Downey Jr.), who represents everything he despises when it comes to the law. Variety said the film “centers around simple but inspired casting, contrasting Duvall’s iconic dignity with Downey’s razor-sharp wit, and providing ample opportunity for both to chew the scenery.”
This film earned Duvall his seventh Oscar nomination.
In 2015, Wild Horses, an ambitious indie feature, the actor’s first directorial effort since 2002’s Assassination Tango, premiered at SXSW.
One of his last film roles was in Scott Cooper’s 2022 film Pale Blue Eyes.
Duvall was born in San Diego, the son of a rear admiral, and grew up in various parts of the country, but particularly in Annapolis, Maryland, the site of the Naval Academy. In fact, it was at the urging of his parents and teachers that Duvall began studying theater. After graduating from Principia College and completing his military service, Duvall studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.
He hung out with friends like Robert Morse, Hackman, and Hoffman. In 1957, Grossbard’s one-night-only production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge led to television appearances in Naked City and guest appearances on shows such as The Defenders, Armstrong Circle Theater, and FBI.
Throughout the ’60s, even after the huge success of A Tale of Alabama, he continued to play character roles in films such as Captain Newman, The Chase, The Detective, True Grit, and Bullitt. He also starred in Westerns such as “Roman,” “The Minnesota Raid,” and “Joe Kidd.”
But he also did great work in the theater, in “Mrs. Warren’s Occupation,” “Call Me By Its Right Name,” “Bebe Fenstermaker’s Day and Night,” and, in 1965, a full-fledged off-Broadway production, “A View from the Bridge,” with Jon Voight and Susan Anspach.
Urban crime dramas were another of his staples, along with westerns. The 1970s included “Badge 373,” “Breakout” and Sam Peckinpah’s “Killer Elite.”
Television sometimes provided actors with attractive and fully three-dimensional roles. In 1979, he appeared in the television movie Ike as General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ten years later, he starred in the acclaimed CBS miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” which earned him an Emmy nomination. He earned his second Emmy nomination for playing the Soviet dictator in the 1992 HBO film “Stalin.” In 1997, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as a Nazi in The Man Who Captured Eichmann. Then, in 2006, he not only headlined but also executive produced the miniseries Broken Trail, a success that established AMC as a producer of original content. And Duvall won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Miniseries. One was his own performance and the other was shared with other producers. On HBO, he appeared in the 2012 television movie Hemingway and Gellhorn, playing a Russian general.
He is survived by his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza, with whom he co-starred in “Assassination Tango.”
