“Duvall by no means performs the identical character twice, and he makes different actors look good. He brings a top quality to his listening, his reactions, that expenses a scene even when he’s not speaking.” – Roger Ebert on Robert Duvall
One other titan is gone. They appear to be falling with extra frequency nowadays. Following within the footsteps of Gene Hackman, Diane Keaton, Robert Redfordand the numerous extra we misplaced in 2025, at this time the information broke that one of many strongest pillars of some of the necessary eras of movie historical past is gone. Robert Duvall handed away yesterday “surrounded by love and luxury” at his Virginia ranch, in keeping with his spouse Luciana.
It’s exhausting to overstate the legacy of Robert Duvall. Simply the breadth of his output alone makes him a necessary title in any retelling of movie historical past as he labored for seven consecutive many years beginning within the Sixties. Over that span, he received an Oscar, 4 Golden Globe Awards, two Emmys, a SAG Award, a BAFTA Award, and extra. He was practically as important to the stage as he was to movie and TV, showing in important productions of Wait Till Darkish and David Mamet’s highly effective American Buffalo.
From the minute he appeared on display in Boo Radley within the beloved adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbirdthere was a presence to Robert Duvall that was simple. He received his Oscar for “Tender Mercies,” however he simply as simply might have taken residence Academy Awards for a dozen different movies: “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The Nice Santini,” “The Apostle,” “The Dialog,” “Community,” “The Pure,” “Sling Blade,” “Loopy Coronary heart,” “The Pure,” “A Civil Motion,” and “Rambling Rose.” Watching these 12 movies alone would give one a strong marathon of American filmmaking from the ’70 to the ‘90s. Duvall was a assist beam for the American movie motion.
Born to a person who was a Rear Admiral and a lady who was reportedly a relative of Normal Robert E. Lee, Robert Selden Duvall at all times appeared to have a little bit of army authority in his on-screen presence. Every little thing modified for younger Duvall when he enrolled within the Neighborhood Playhouse Faculty of the Theatre below the legendary Sanford Meisner, the place Duvall’s classmates included James Caan, Dustin Hoffman, and Gene Hackman.
Like quite a lot of actors of his period, Robert Duvall started his profession on the stage, reportedly taking a task in a Lengthy Island summer season theater manufacturing in 1952. He labored persistently on the stage within the New York space within the ‘50s, and his most notable function off-Broadway on this interval was within the unique manufacturing of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge with Dustin Hoffman. He made his Broadway debut in Wait Till Darkish in 1966 and performed Educate within the first Broadway manufacturing of American Buffalo. It’s an unimaginable half that will be performed in later productions by Al Pacino and William H. Macy.
Robert Duvall transitioned to tv within the ‘60s, showing in quite a few hits of the day like “The Untouchables,” “The Outer Limits,” “The Fugitive,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and a fantastic episode of “The Twilight Zone” referred to as “Miniature” through which he performs a museum goer who discovers {that a} dollhouse has dwelling residents. When he falls in love with the feminine of the dollhouse, issues get even weirder. It doesn’t fairly stick the touchdown, nevertheless it’s simple to see the best way that Duvall holds a digicam even this early in his profession in 1963.
The story goes that none aside from Horton Foote noticed a younger Duvall in a manufacturing if his The Midnight Caller in 1957 and he’s the one who really helpful him for Boo Radley in 1962’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (and would later write the half that will win Duvall his Oscar). The recluse within the city of Maycomb, Alabama, Radley is a personality who displays acceptance of outsiders in Lee’s ebook and the variation, a determine who represents the folly of judgment. Radley finally ends up saving the lives of Jem and Scout Finch, and Duvall makes an impression within the movie with restricted display time.
There have been small roles in massive movies within the ‘60s, together with components in “Bullitt” and “True Grit,” however Duvall’s prime got here comparatively late, in his forties, within the Nineteen Seventies. There have been few main American filmmakers of the period whose work wasn’t grounded by Duvall, together with Robert Altman (“M*A*S*H”), George Lucas (“THX 1138”), John Sturges (“The Eagle Has Landed”), Sidney Lumet (“Community”), and, in fact, Francis Ford Coppola, who forged Duvall as Tom Hagen in a bit of film referred to as “The Godfather,” which earned Duvall his first Oscar nomination. He would, in fact, seem within the sequel, together with Coppola’s different ‘70s masterpieces “The Dialog” and “Apocalypse Now,” which received him BAFTA and Golden Globe awards.
Going into the ‘80s as some of the acclaimed character actors on the earth, Duvall would ultimately get his Oscar for Bruce Beresford’s “Tender Mercies,” the story of an alcoholic nation singer. Roger Ebert wrote in his Nice Films essay on the movie, “It incorporates certainly one of his most understated performances. It’s principally completed together with his eyes. The actor who shouted, “I like the scent of napalm within the morning!” right here performs a personality who desires to be rid of shouting. The movie itself by no means shouts. Its title evokes its temper, though this isn’t a narrative about happiness. “I don’t belief happiness. I by no means did, I by no means will,” Mac Sledge tells Rosa Lee, in a scene framed totally in a medium-long shot that presumably received him the Oscar.”
The roles would actually by no means cease from right here. In 1989, he appeared in what many nonetheless take into account the most effective TV mini-series of all time, “Lonesome Dove,” which he instructed the Los Angeles Instances was his favourite function. He received a Golden Globe for the half.
Robert Duvall actually maintained outstanding management over his profession for the final 4 many years of his life, a mannequin of how you can use fame to be selective with roles. He refused to return to “The Godfather Half III” as a result of he wasn’t getting paid as a lot as Pacino. He wrote and directed himself to an Oscar nomination for his breathtaking work in “The Apostle.” Different highlights embrace “Days of Thunder,” “Rambling Rose,” “Falling Down,” “The Paper,” “Sling Blade,” “Deep Influence,” “A Civil Motion,” “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “We Personal the Night time,” “Get Low,” “Jack Reacher,” “The Decide,” and “Widows.”
Robert Duvall wasn’t a typical Hollywood presence. Whenever you consider him, it’s not on crimson carpets or late-night speak exhibits. It’s on display. It’s the characters who you’ll be able to see considering, feeling, and reacting, typically males who consider themselves impenetrable from the world being confirmed in any other case.
As Roger stated, “It’s principally completed together with his eyes.”