ALBAWABA - Robert Duvall, legendary Oscar winner, leaves behind unforgettable film legacy.
The Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall has died at the age of 95. He was best known for his roles in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.
Lisa Duvall said in a statement on Monday, "For all of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented."
In movies like "The Godfather," where he played Tom Hagen, a butler to the Corleone family, Robert Duvall was known for playing tough guys.
He also played Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meechum in The Great Santini and the main character in Stalin. In Tender Mercies and The Apostle, he played characters who were broken and had lost hope.
Many people have said nice things about the Hollywood star. Adam Sandler, who used to work with Duvall, called him "one of the greatest actors we've ever had." Michael Imperioli, who used to work with Duvall on The Sopranos, called him "one of the best actors ever" and "an actor's actor."
In the United States, Robert Duvall grew up in Annapolis, Maryland. His father was an admiral in the US Navy, and his mother was an amateur actor. After graduating from Illinois's Principia College and serving in the US Army, he went to New York City and roomed with Dustin Hoffman. There, he met Gene Hackman and became friends with him while all three were struggling acting students.
Duvall made a big mark in his first movies, like To Kill a Mockingbird, where he played the mysterious recluse Boo Radley. He had already worked on a number of TV shows.
Horton Foote, who wrote the script for the movie, suggested Duvall for the part because he liked how he played a role in one of his plays. It was later written by Foote. Duvall won the Academy Award for best actor in 1983 for his role as a broke country singer in Tender Mercies.
There were six more Oscar nominations for Robert Duvall. One was for his role in Apocalypse Now, Frances Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam epic. Duvall played Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who was crazy and obsessed with surfing.
The character said, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," which became famous.
Duvall was in almost 100 movies altogether. He also made his own movies when he got tired of Hollywood. He wrote, directed, and was nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Apostle, which is about a priest who is torn between his beliefs.
Duvall did the same thing with Assassination Tango, a movie that let him show how much he loved tango and Argentina, where he met his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza.
Duvall spent some of his later years living in Los Angeles, Argentina, and on a farm in Virginia. There, he turned the barn into a tango dance hall.
