The legendary US actor was nominated for seven Oscars and received for his function as a washed-up nation singer in Tender Mercies.
Printed On 16 Feb 2026
Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall, finest recognized for his work in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, has died aged 95, his spouse has introduced in a Fb submit.
“For every of his many roles, Bob gave every thing to his characters and to the reality of the human spirit they represented,” Luciana Duvall mentioned in a press release on Monday.
Duvall was finest recognized for enjoying forceful roles akin to his depiction of Tom Hagen, consigliere to the Corleone Mafia household in The Godfather.
He additionally performed Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meechum in The Nice Santini and the title character in Stalin, in addition to broken-down and fallen characters in Tender Mercies and The Apostle.
Duvall, the son of a US Navy admiral and an newbie actress, grew up in Annapolis, Maryland in the USA. After graduating from Principia Faculty in Illinois and serving within the US Military, he moved to New York Metropolis, the place he roomed with Dustin Hoffman and befriended Gene Hackman when the three have been struggling performing college students.
After engaged on a wide range of tv reveals, Duvall made a robust impression in his first forays onto the massive display, akin to his first film half because the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Duvall bought the half on the suggestion of the movie’s screenwriter, Horton Foote, who had appreciated Duvall’s work in one in every of his performs. Foote later wrote Tender Mercies, a 1983 movie for which Duvall received the Academy Award for finest actor as a washed-up nation singer.
Duvall was nominated for one more six Oscars, together with for his work in Frances Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now. Duvall performed the off-kilter, surfing-obsessed Lieutenant Colonel Invoice Kilgore.
The character’s well-known line, “I really like the scent of napalm within the morning”, grew to become legendary.
In all, Duvall appeared in nearly 100 films. And when he grew weary of Hollywood, he made his personal movies. He wrote, directed and received an Oscar performing nomination for The Apostle, the story of a conflicted preacher.
Duvall did the identical with Assassination Tango, a film that allowed him to exhibit his ardour for the tango and Argentina, the place he met his fourth spouse, Luciana Pedraza.
In later life, Duvall break up his time between Los Angeles, Argentina and a farm in Virginia, the place he transformed the barn right into a tango dance corridor.
