Legendary actor Robert Duvall died Sunday at his home in Middleburg, Virginia. He was 95. His publicist confirmed the news, and his wife, Luciana Duvall, posted a tribute on his Facebook page that captured the man behind the legend.
"To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything. His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court."
Seven Academy Award nominations. The best actor wins. Four Golden Globes. A National Medal of Arts. A career that stretched from his 1962 film debut as Boo Radley in "To Kill a Mockingbird" to roles in his mid-80s. The numbers tell part of it. The work tells the rest.
Duvall was never the loudest presence on screen. That was the point. He played Tom Hagen in "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II," the consigliere who kept the Corleone empire running while bigger personalities raged around him. Critic David Thomson understood what made the performance singular, the Associated Press reported:
"Stars and Italians alike depend on his efficiency, his tidying up around their grand gestures, his being the perfect shortstop on a team of personality sluggers. Was there ever a role better designed for its actor than that of Tom Hagen in both parts of 'The Godfather?'"
He'd been acting for some 20 years before Francis Coppola cast him in "The Godfather." Coppola already knew what he had. The two had worked together on "The Rain People," and the director understood Duvall's process was ruthlessly efficient. As Coppola put it, "Bobby's hot after one or two takes."
Then came Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now," and Duvall delivered one of the most quoted lines in film history. The napalm speech. You know it. Everyone knows it. He earned a supporting actor nomination for a role that lesser actors would have turned into a cartoon. Duvall made Kilgore terrifying precisely because he played him as a man who believed every word he said.
What separated Duvall from the Hollywood pack wasn't just talent. It was a principle. When the third "Godfather" film came around, a dispute over money led him to walk away from one of the most iconic franchises in cinema. He complained publicly about being offered less than his co-stars. In an industry where actors routinely swallow indignities for a paycheck, Duvall said no.
He won his best actor Oscar in 1984 for "Tender Mercies," a quiet film about a broken-down country singer finding redemption. He accepted the award in a cowboy tuxedo with a Western tie. No pretense. No performance. Just the man.
His other work reads like a survey of American character itself:
Perhaps nothing revealed Duvall's character more than "The Apostle." He wrote the script over 12 years. He directed it. He starred in it. He produced it. He largely financed it himself. To prepare, he visited dozens of country churches across the South, studying the rhythms and fire of Pentecostal preaching.
The film earned him a best actor nomination in 1998. But the nomination was almost beside the point. "The Apostle" was a passion project in the truest sense, a film about faith and human frailty made by a man who took both seriously. Hollywood rarely rewards that kind of sincerity. Duvall made it anyway.
He directed other personal projects, too. "We're Not the Jet Set," a documentary about a prairie family. "Angelo, My Love," a film about gypsies. "Assassination Tango," which grew out of his genuine love for the dance he'd pursued since seeing "Tango Argentina" in the 1980s. He visited Argentina dozens of times and eventually married his co-star from that film, Luciana Pedraza, in 2005. She was 42 years his junior.
Duvall grew up in Annapolis and the San Diego area, the son of a Navy officer who was, in his son's words, "a gentleman but a seether, a stern, blustery guy, and away a lot of the time." His mother was an amateur actress. They recommended acting as "an expedient thing to get through." He was glad they did.
He nearly flunked out of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, but it was there that a teacher named Frank Parker changed the trajectory of his life. Duvall recalled playing an older character in "All My Sons" and reaching an emotional moment so raw that Parker, a critical man by nature, told him he didn't think acting could be carried any further. That was the moment Duvall knew.
He served two years in the Army, then used the G.I. Bill to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. His peers there included Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Morse. A one-night performance in "A View From the Bridge" opened the door to television work on shows like "The Naked City" and "The Defenders." The film career followed.
Michael Caine, who worked with Duvall on "Secondhand Lions" in 2003, described his preparation with the kind of reverence actors reserve for the genuine article:
"Before a big scene, Bobby just sits there, absolutely quiet; you know when not to talk to him."
Duvall himself, speaking to The Associated Press in 1990, offered his own explanation for longevity in a business that chews through people:
"When I was doing 'Colors' in 1988 with Sean Penn, someone asked me how I do it all these years, keep it fresh. Well, if you don't overwork, have some hobbies, you can do it and stay hungry even if you're not really hungry."
He was a wrestler. A guitar player. A tango dancer. A man who seethed at director Henry Hathaway during filming of "True Grit" and kept working for decades after. Three marriages ended in divorce before he found Luciana. He was not a simple man, but he played them with a truth that made simplicity look like depth.
Duvall left behind more recent work, too, including "Widows" and "12 Mighty Orphans," proving that the fire never quite went out. It just burned quieter.
Middleburg, Virginia, is horse country. Quiet. Far from Hollywood in every way that matters. It's where Robert Duvall chose to live, and where he chose to die. That tells you everything the résumé doesn't.
