Robert Duvall dead – ‘Godfather,’ ‘Apocalypse Now’ icon dies at 95

Robert Duvall, one of Hollywood’s most sought-after character actors, won an Oscar, 2 Emmys and 4 Golden Globes in his extraordinary career.

Robert Duvall, the Academy Award-winning actor known for his roles in Hollywood classics such as “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” has died. He was 95.

Duvall died “peacefully” at home on Feb. 15 in Middleburg, Virginia, a representative for the actor confirmed. He was with his wife, 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 on Facebook. “His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court.

“For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented. In doing so, he leaves something lasting and unforgettable to us all.”

During a seven-decade stage, TV and screen acting career, Duvall disappeared into a stunning range of strong-willed characters, leading to seven Oscar nominations and a best actor win for his role as a down-and-out country singer in 1983’s “Tender Mercies.” He also won two Primetime Emmys and four Golden Globe Awards for his work.

Robert Duvall: The legend reflects on ‘The Godfather’ in final USA TODAY interview

He played a wide array of unforgettable men, from Mafia lawyer Tom Hagen in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 “The Godfather” to the surf and napalm-loving Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore in Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War saga “Apocalypse Now,” in which Duvall utters the immortal line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. … It smells like victory.”

His domineering Marine pilot patriarch Bull Meechum in “The Great Santini” burst onto movie screens in 1979, earning another Oscar nomination. Just for good measure, he appeared that same year as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in the miniseries “Ike: The War Years.”

Also on TV, he became Joseph Stalin in 1992’s “Stalin,” Nazi Adolf Eichmann in 1996’s “The Man Who Captured Eichmann” and, his favorite role, Texas Ranger Capt. Augustus “Gus” McCrae in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove.”

Still, Duvall, who obsessed over tango dancing when he wasn’t acting, felt all of these characters came from within.

“Has to be, it’s you underneath,” Duvall told CBS “60 Minutes” in 2004. “You interpret somebody, you try to let it come from yourself.”

Born Robert Selden Duvall on Jan. 5, 1931, to career Navy officer (and later admiral) William Howard Duvall and actress Mildred Virginia, Duvall told USA TODAY in 2014 that it was his mother who “ran the show” growing up.

“It was supposed to be when the military guy comes back, she imperceptively gives him the power to run the family until he goes away again,” Duvall said. “He never had it.”

After a brief military stint, Duvall began his acting career with off-Broadway plays in New York City, becoming close friends and often roommates with up-and-coming actors Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and James Caan. The impressive stage roles landed Duvall a major movie debut, the wordless but memorable Boo Radley in 1962’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

But Duvall struggled to stand out, even with significant minor roles such as 1969’s dastardly “Lucky” Ned Pepper, who battled to the death on horses with John Wayne’s one-eyed Federal Marshal Rooster Cogburn in the classic 1969 Western “True Grit,” a role which won Wayne his only Oscar.

He would break out in 1972’s “The Godfather,” as the indecipherable, Irish Hagen, the loyal, adopted family consigliere to the Corleone clan. Duvall reprised his role in 1974’s lauded sequel “Godfather Part II.”

Describe by People magazine as “Hollywood’s No. 1 No. 2 lead,”  Duvall didn’t appear in Coppola’s 1990 trilogy-ending “The Godfather Part III” after a dispute over his paycheck compared to Al Pacino, who played family head Michael Corleone.

“If they paid Pacino twice what they paid me, that’s fine, but not three or four times, which is what they did,” Duvall told “60 Minutes” of his decision to sit out the finale.

It was his movie-stealing supporting role in Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” that Duvall earned his most widespread public acclaim. As the shirtless Kilgore, he demanded his men surf even amid a fierce battle. Throughout his career, Duvall relished telling variations of fan moments centered around Kilgore’s famed line.

“People come up to me on the street and say, ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning,’ like I never knew it and had forgotten it after I said it,” Duvall said with a laugh on the Bob Costas “Later” talk show in 1991. “It’s like, ‘Enough’s enough.’ “

Duvall reached cult-level status portraying Texas Ranger McCrae in “Lonesome Dove,” based on the Larry McMurtry novels of the same name. 

“I remember walking into the mess hall one day on ‘Lonesome Dove.’ I said, ‘Boys, we’re making a “Godfather” of Westerns,’ ” Duvall told the Los Angeles Times in 2014.

In 2021, he name-checked the movie to USA TODAY as the performance he was proudest of. “The Western is our genre in the United States of America. The English have Shakespeare, the French have Molière, the Russians have Chekhov, but we have the Western,” Duvall said.

At the 1989 Emmy Awards, the four-part series brought in seven wins, including best actor in a miniseries for Duvall, from 18 nominations. “I said to myself, now I can retire. I’ve done something,” he told Esquire.

Duvall, who married four times, never truly considered retiring from acting. In 2002, he starred, wrote, produced and directed the crime thriller “Assassination Tango” with his Argentinian partner Luciana Pedraza, who became Duvall’s fourth wife in 2004 and shared his birthday.

Portraying embattled country judge Joseph Palmer in “The Judge,” alongside Robert Downey as his city-slicker attorney son, Duvall pulled out his seventh Oscar nomination from the forgettable screen drama at age 84 − setting a record for the oldest actor nomination, since eclipsed by Christopher Plummer.

Duvall forged ahead playing racist Chicago political operative Tom Mulligan in Steve McQueen’s “Widows” in 2018. In 2021, he appeared in the high school football drama “12 Mighty Orphans” and in 2022, the Adam Sandler basketball comedy “Hustle.”

The actor told Esquire that the search for the next, perfect role would never end as long as he could stand.

“I’ve done a lot of crap, but I’ve done a lot of good stuff, too,” said Duvall. “You always wish there was one more. It’s like the great jumping-horse riders − always looking for a horse, the horse.”

Contributing: Patrick Ryan