Robert Duvall, an Oscar-winning actor whose career spanned 70 years, has died. He was 95 years old.
His wife, Luciana Duvall, confirmed his death on February 15th.
“Yesterday we said goodbye to our beloved husband, dear friend and one of the greatest actors of our time,” Luciana, 54, wrote on Facebook on Monday, adding that the actor “passed away peacefully at home surrounded by love and peace.”
“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, director and storyteller,” the Argentine actress continued. “For me, he was everything. His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love of character, great food, and holding court.”
Luciana said that in his many performances, Robert was “all about the characters and the truth of the human spirit that they represented.”
“In doing so, he left us all with something lasting and unforgettable,” she shared. “Thank you for your continued support of Bob and for allowing us the time and privacy to celebrate the memories he left behind.”
Luciana’s obituary included a photo of the couple posing with a horse and two dogs on their Virginia ranch.
Born in San Diego on January 5, 1931, Robert and his two brothers grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, near the Naval Academy where their father served.
After pursuing a career in acting, Robert studied theater at Principia College in Illinois and then at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, where his classmates included Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, and James Caan.
Robert’s first major film role was as Boo Radley in 1962’s “An Alabama Story.”
He was recommended for the job by the film’s screenwriter Horton Foote, with whom he had worked on the 1957 play The Midnight Caller.
In 1972, Robert received his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Tom Hagen in The Godfather. He reprized the role in the 1974 sequel, The Godfather Part II.
“I always come back to ‘The Godfather.’ The first two are the best movies ever made. About a quarter of the way through, I knew there was something special,” Robert told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2012.
However, according to Screen Rant, director Francis Ford Coppola stated in the film’s DVD commentary that he did not return for 1990’s The Godfather Part III due to a salary dispute with Paramount Pictures.
Robert also co-starred with Coppola in 1979’s Apocalypse Now, in which Coppola utters the iconic line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” This role earned him his second Oscar nomination.
Coppola told People magazine in 2003 about Robert: “An actor gets into a role at different times, the first week, the third week, etc. Bobby gets hot in one or two takes. That’s all you need from him.”
Robert’s other Oscar nominations include The Great Santini (1979), The Apostle (1997), A Civil Action (1998), and The Judge (2014).
He won a Best Actor Oscar in 1984 for his role as alcoholic country singer Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies.
His other popular films include True Grit (1969), Tomorrow (1972), Days of Thunder (1990), The Paper (1994), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), God and the General (2003), Four Christmases (2008), and Crazy Heart (2009). ), “Jack”, etc. Reacher. ”
He is also remembered for playing Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H (1970) and the lead role in George Lucas’ feature directorial debut, THX 1138 (1971).
His last film appearances were in Hustle, starring Adam Sandler, and Pale Blue Eye, starring Christian Bale, both released in 2022.
He also had a prolific career in television, winning two Emmy Awards for starring and executive producing the 2006 AMC miniseries “Broken Trail.”
Robert was also nominated for an Emmy Award for his roles in the 1989 four-part miniseries “Lonesome Dove” and the television movies “Stalin” and “The Man Who Captured Eichmann.”
Robert lived with Hoffman and Hackman in New York City in the 1960s early in their careers.
In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Hoffman said Robert was “outrageous” and “uncensored” and that when he was young he “did everything impulsively.”
In the same interview, Robert said Hackman, who died in February 2025 at the age of 95, was a “suffering man” who was “always in his own space, in his own thing.”
Despite being married four times, Robert had no children, and in 2007 he said, “I feel like I’m shooting blanks. I’ve (tried) different women, both married and outside of marriage.”
He was married to announcer and dancer Barbara Benjamin from 1964 to 1975, to Gail Youngs from 1982 to 1986, and to dancer Sharon Brophy from 1991 to 1995. He married Luciana in 2005.
She is an Argentine actress and director and the granddaughter of Argentine aviation pioneer Susana Ferrari Billinghurst.
Robert spoke about how the couple met in a 2010 interview with Esquire magazine.
“I met my wife in Argentina. The flower shop was closed, so I went to the bakery. If the flower shop had been open, I would never have met her,” he said.
Robert, who is 41 years older than Luciana, also admitted that he was “a little worried” about being with a much younger woman at first.
“So I asked[actor]Wilford Brimley about it. Wilford is a very smart guy. He used to be Howard Hughes’ bodyguard,” Robert said. “He said, ‘My friend, let me tell you this: The worst thing in the world for an old man is an old woman!’
