Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor of matchless versatility and dedication whose basic roles included the intrepid consigliere of the primary two “Godfather” motion pictures and the over-the-hill nation music singer in “Tender Mercies,” has died at age 95.
Duvall died “peacefully” at his house Sunday in Middleburg, Virginia, based on an announcement from his publicist and from a press release posted on his Facebook web page by his spouse, Luciana Duvall.
“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,” Luciana Duvall wrote. “His ardour for his craft was matched solely by his deep love for characters, an amazing meal, and holding court docket. For every of his many roles, Bob gave every thing to his characters and to the reality of the human spirit they represented.”
The bald, wiry Duvall did not have main man seems, however few “character actors” loved such a protracted, rewarding and unpredictable profession, in main and supporting roles, from an itinerant preacher to Josef Stalin. Beginning together with his 1962 movie debut as Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbor in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Duvall created a gallery of unforgettable portrayals. They earned him seven Academy Award nominations and the most effective actor prize for “Tender Mercies,” which got here out in 1983. He additionally gained 4 Golden Globes, together with one for enjoying the philosophical cattle-drive boss within the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” a task he usually cited as his favourite.
In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts.
He had been performing for some 20 years when “The Godfather,” launched in 1972, established him as one of the crucial in-demand performers of Hollywood. He had made a earlier movie, “The Rain People,” with Francis Coppola, and the director selected him to play Tom Hagen within the mafia epic that featured Al Pacino and Marlon Brando amongst others. Duvall was a grasp of subtlety as an Irishman amongst Italians, not often on the heart of a scene, however usually listening and advising within the background, an irreplaceable thread by way of the saga of the Corleone crime household.
“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,” wrote the critic David Thomson. “Was there ever a role better designed for its actor than that of Tom Hagen in both parts of ‘The Godfather?’”
In one other Coppola movie, “Apocalypse Now,” Duvall was wildly out entrance, the embodiment of deranged masculinity as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who with equal vigor loved browsing and bombing raids on the Viet Cong. Duvall required few takes for one of the crucial well-known passages in film historical past, barked out on the battlefield by a bare-chested, cavalry-hatted Kilgore: “I really like the scent of napalm within the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was throughout, I walked up. We didn’t discover one among ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink physique.
“The scent, that gasoline scent, the entire hill. Smelled like — victory.”
Coppola as soon as commented about Duvall: “Actors click into character at different times — the first week, third week. Bobby’s hot after one or two takes.”
He was Oscar-nominated as supporting actor for “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” however a dispute over cash led him to show down the third Godfather epic, a loss deeply felt by critics, followers and “Godfather” colleagues. Duvall would complain publicly about being provided lower than his co-stars.
Fellow actors marveled at Duvall’s studious analysis and planning, and his coiled power. Michael Caine, who co-starred with him within the 2003 “Secondhand Lions,” as soon as informed The Associated Press: “Before a big scene, Bobby just sits there, absolutely quiet; you know when not to talk to him.” Anyone who disturbed him would endure the well-known Duvall mood, famously on show throughout the filming of the John Wayne Western “True Grit,” when Duvall seethed at director Henry Hathaway’s recommendation to “tense up” earlier than a scene.
Duvall was awarded an Oscar in 1984 for his main position because the troubled singer and songwriter Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies,” a prize he accepted whereas clad in a cowboy tuxedo with Western tie. In 1998, he was nominated for greatest actor in “The Apostle,” a drama a few wayward Southern evangelist which he wrote, directed, starred in, produced and largely financed. With customary thoroughness, he visited dozens of nation church buildings and spent 12 years writing the script and attempting to get it made.
Among different notable roles: the outlaw gang chief who will get ambushed by John Wayne in “True Grit”; Jesse James in “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”; the pious and beleaguered Frank Burns in “M-A-S-H”; the TV hatchet man in “Network”; Dr. Watson in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”; and the sadistic father in “The Great Santini.”
“When I used to be doing ‘Colors’ in 1988 with Sean Penn, somebody requested me how I do all of it these years, maintain it contemporary. Well, in the event you don’t overwork, have some hobbies, you are able to do it and keep hungry even in the event you’re not likely hungry,” Duvall informed The Associated Press in 1990.
In his mid-80s, he acquired a supporting Oscar nomination because the title character of the 2014 launch “The Judge,” through which he’s accused of inflicting a demise in a hit-and-run accident. More current movies included “Widows” and “12 Mighty Orphans.”
Robert Selden Duvall grew up within the Navy cities of Annapolis and the San Diego space, the place he was born in 1931. He hung out in different cities as his father, who rose to be an admiral, was assigned to numerous duties.
The boy’s expertise helped in his grownup occupation as he realized the nuances of regional speech and noticed the psyche of navy males, which he would painting in a number of movies.
Duvall reportedly used his Navy officer father as the idea for his portrayal of the explosive militarist in “The Great Santini,” based on the Pat Conroy novel. He commented in 2003: “My dad was a gentleman however a seether, a stern, blustery man, and away lots of the time.” Bobby took after his mom, an beginner actress, in enjoying a guitar and performing. He was a wrestler like his father and loved besting children older than himself.
He lacked the focus for schoolwork and almost flunked out of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. His despairing mother and father determined he wanted one thing to maintain him in faculty so he would not be drafted for the Korean War. “They recommended acting as an expedient thing to get through,” he recalled. “I’m glad they did.” He flourished in drama lessons.
“Way back when I was in college,” Duvall informed the AP in 1990, “there was an exquisite man named Frank Parker, who had been a dancer in World War I. We did a full-length mime play and I performed a Harlequin clown. I actually favored that.
“Then, I played an older guy in ‘All My Sons,’ and at one point I had this emotional moment, where this emotion was pouring out. Parker said at that moment he didn’t think acting can be carried any further than that. And this guy was a very critical guy. So I thought, at that moment at least, this is what I wanted to do.”
After two years within the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to finance his research on the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, hanging out with such different younger hopefuls as Robert Morse, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. After a one-night efficiency in “A View From the Bridge,” Duvall started getting presents for work in TV collection, amongst them “The Naked City” and “The Defenders.”
Between his high-paying jobs in main productions, Duvall devoted himself to directing private initiatives: a documentary a few prairie household, “We’re Not the Jet Set”; a movie about gypsies, “Angelo, My Love”; and “Assassination Tango,” through which he additionally starred.
Duvall had been a tango dancer since seeing the musical “Tango Argentina” within the Eighties and visited in Argentina dozens of occasions to check the dance and the tradition. The end result was the 2003 launch a few hit man with a ardour for tango.
His co-star was Luciana Pedraza, 42 years his junior, whom he married in 2005. Duvall’s three earlier marriages — to Barbara Benjamin, Gail Youngs and Sharon Brophy — resulted in divorce.
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Former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent Bob Thomas, who died in 2014, was the first author of this obituary
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