Remembering Robert Duvall, Whose Acting Brilliance Colored in the Light and Dark Sides of Humanity

When you think of the great actors, one of the first qualities that leaps to mind is range. Robert Duvall, who died Sunday at 95 and was most assuredly one of the great actors, had that quality to the nth degree. He was a sly-dog virtuoso whose roster of indelible characters included a broken-down country singer, a Mafia consigliere, a charismatic Pentecostal preacher, a psychotic Army commander, a corrupt TV news executive and a creepy neighbor who lives in the shadows, not to mention a whole lot of cowboys and also Dwight D. Eisenhower and Joseph Stalin. Born in California and raised in Maryland, Duvall, as much or more than any actor of his time, had a deep identification with the world of the South. In one role after another, he used a drawl and a laidback cadence to portray men from that region — both charmers and killers, each subtly different from the last,…