<figure id="attachment_3284520" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3284520" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-3284520" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/6d3f50b7-robert-duvall.jpg" alt="Robert Duvall" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3284520" class="wp-caption-text">Robert Duvall won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Actor for playing a washed-up country singer in &#8216;Tender Mercies&#8217;. (EPA Images pic)</figcaption></figure>
LOS ANGELES: Robert Duvall, who played the smooth mafia lawyer in &#8220;The Godfather&#8221; and stole the show with his depiction of a surfing-crazed colonel in &#8220;Apocalypse Now,&#8221; has died at the age of 95, his wife said Monday.
His death Sunday was confirmed by his wife Luciana Duvall.
&#8220;Yesterday we said goodbye to my beloved husband, cherished friend, and one of the greatest actors of our time. Bob passed away peacefully at home,&#8221; she wrote.
Blunt-talking, prolific and glitz-averse, Duvall won an Oscar for best actor and was nominated six other times. Over his six decades-long career, he shone in both lead and supporting roles, and eventually became a director. He kept acting in his 90s.
&#8220;To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,&#8221; Luciana Duvall said. &#8220;His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court.&#8221;
Duvall won his Academy Award in 1983 for playing a washed-up country singer in &#8220;Tender Mercies.&#8221;
But his most memorable characters also included the soft-spoken, loyal mob consigliere Tom Hagen in the first two installments of &#8220;The Godfather&#8221; and the maniacal Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola&#8217;s 1979 Vietnam War epic &#8220;Apocalypse Now.&#8221;
The latter, which earned Duvall an Oscar nomination and made him a bona fide star after years playing lesser roles, sees him utter what is now one of cinema&#8217;s most famous lines.
&#8220;I love the smell of napalm in the morning,&#8221; his war-loving character &#8211; bare chested, cocky and sporting a big black cowboy hat &#8211; muses as low-flying US warplanes bomb a beachfront tree line where he wants to go surfing.
That character was originally created to be even more over the top &#8211; his name was at first supposed to be Colonel Carnage &#8211; but Duvall had it toned down, demonstrating his meticulous approach to acting.
&#8220;I did my homework,&#8221; Duvall told veteran talk show host Larry King in 2015. &#8220;I did my research.&#8221;
Duvall was sort of a late bloomer in Hollywood &#8211; he was already 31 when he delivered his breakout performance as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee&#8217;s novel &#8220;To Kill a Mockingbird.&#8221;
He would go on to play myriad roles &#8211; a bullying corporate executive in &#8220;Network&#8221; (1976), a Marine officer who treats his family like soldiers in &#8220;The Great Santini&#8221; (1979), and then his star turn in &#8220;Tender Mercies.&#8221;
Duvall often said his favourite role, however, was one he played in a 1989 TV mini-series &#8211; the grizzled, wise-cracking Texas Ranger-turned-cowboy Augustus McCrae in &#8220;Lonesome Dove,&#8221; based on the novel by Larry McMurtry.
Film critic Elaine Mancini once described Duvall as &#8220;the most technically proficient, the most versatile, and the most convincing actor on the screen in the United States.&#8221;

MatchPoint Times

‘Godfather’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’ actor Robert Duvall dies at 95

US actor Robert Duvall shone in lead and supporting roles over a six-decade career and continued acting into his 90s.

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