What’s amazing about Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall, who died Feb. 16 at 95, is the litany of varied films in his decades-long, storied career.
In his debut film, the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” in 1962, he never spoke a word as simpleton Boo Radley. During an extensive and prolific career that included classics such as two “Godfather” mob dramas, “Apocalypse Now” and the TV miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” Duvall also had memorable featured screen moments; like getting shot by the Duke himself, John Wayne, in “True Grit” in 1969. “Well, Rooster, I’m shot to pieces,” Duvall’s Ned Pepper said to Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn.
Duvall’s career lasted long enough that he got to act with one of the original action heroes, Steve McQueen, in the actioner “Bullitt” in 1968. He had a distinctive career break as Tom Hagen, mob consigliere or right-hand man for Don Vito Corleone, portrayed famously by Marlon Brando in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic “The Godfather” in 1972 and “The Godfather Part II” in 1974.
Coppola also directed Duvall in the drama “The Rain People” in 1969, three years prior to “The Godfather.” Before Duvall’s triumph in Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” in 1979, Duvall portrayed a high-powered TV executive in Sidley Lumet’s “Network” in 1976. He also took on the role of Dr. Watson in Herbert Ross’s “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” in 1976.
Movie fans and others alike will remember one of Duvall’s signature roles, Coppola’s Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now.” He played Lt. Col. Kilgore, which allegedly was based on my Dad’s U.S. Army Capt. David Hackworth.
We will never forget Duvall shirtless and squatting on a just-secured beach proclaiming, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. … It smells like victory.” Later, Duvall did a couple of notable Westerns. He shared the screen with Kevin Costner and Annette Bening in “Open Range” in 2003.
His epic Western performance though must be as former Texas Ranger Augustus “Gus” McCrae opposite Tommy Lee Jones as fellow former Ranger Woodrow F. Call in the 1989 epic TV miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” written by Larry McMurtry.
Some of my other favorite Duvall movies included Robert Altman’s “The Gingerbread Man” in 1998, “A Civil Action” in 1998, which earned Duvall a Best Supporting Action Oscar nomination as a prosecuting attorney, and the ensemble action-drama “Gone in 60 Seconds” where Duvall shared the screen with Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie and Will Patton.
Every time I saw that a movie coming out had Duvall in the cast, I’d go out of my way to see it in a theater to soak in his onscreen brilliance. Duvall was a great actor. I’ll miss him.
