Robert Duvall: The Godfather star dies at 95

Oscar winner Robert Duvall, a versatile actor who made lasting impressions in a range of parts from starring to supporting roles like the napalm-loving colonel of Apocalypse Now or the spectral Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, has died at age 95.

Duvall who played Tom Hagen, a lawyer for the Corleone family, in The Godfather and its first sequel, and starred in the TV miniseries Lonesome Dove, died peacefully on Sunday, his wife said in a Facebook post.

“For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented,” Luciana Duvall said.

Duvall played forceful leaders such as Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meechum in The Great Santini and the title character in Stalin, as well as broken-down and fallen characters in Tender Mercies and The Apostle. He won awards for both types of roles.

Duvall, the son of a Navy admiral and an amateur actress, grew up in Annapolis, Maryland.

After graduating from Principia College in Illinois and serving in the US Army, he moved to New York, where he roomed with Dustin Hoffman and befriended Gene Hackman when the three were struggling acting students.

After working on a variety of television shows, Duvall made a strong impression even in small roles, such as his first movie part as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Duvall got the part at the suggestion of the film’s screenwriter, Horton Foote, who had liked Duvall’s work in one of his plays.

Foote later wrote Tender Mercies, a 1983 film for which Duvall won the Academy Award for best actor as a washed-up country singer.

Perhaps Duvall’s most memorable role came in Frances Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now, playing the off-kilter, surfing-obsessed Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore.

Duvall only received a few minutes of screen time but almost stole the film as his character swaggered around a battlefield after a successful attack and exuberantly proclaimed, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”. It smelled “like victory”, Kilgore said.

The role brought Duvall one of his seven Academy Award nominations. Another was for Best Supporting Actor for Coppola’s The Godfather, playing Tom Hagen, consigliere to the Corleone Mafia family. Duvall appeared in the second Godfather film but rejected the third because he considered the salary offer inadequate.

Duvall also was nominated for Oscars for The Great Santini, The Apostle, A Civil Action and The Judge in 2014. In all, he appeared in almost 100 movies.

Duvall had a knack for playing cowboys.

He won an Emmy for the television mini-series Broken Trail, appeared opposite John Wayne in True Grit, and picked up an Emmy nomination for the mini-series Lonesome Dove.

He often said his portrayal of the genial lawman-turned-cowboy Gus McRae in Lonesome Dove was his favourite role.

“I think I nailed a very specific individual guy who represents something important in our history of the Western movement,” Duvall told the New York Times.

“After that, I felt I could retire, that’d I’d done something.”

When he grew weary of Hollywood, Duvall made his own movies. He wrote, directed and won an Oscar acting nomination for The Apostle, the story of a conflicted preacher.

Duvall did the same with Assassination Tango, a movie that allowed him to exhibit his passion for the tango and Argentina, where he met his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza. They were both born on January 5 but 41 years apart.

Duvall split his time between Los Angeles, Argentina and a 146-hectare farm in Virginia, where he converted the barn into a tango dance hall.

with AP