Robert Selden Duvall
1930 -
American born San Diego, California
Height 5' 10" (1.78 m) . Actor and director Robert Duvall was born on January 5, 1931 in San Diego, California, the son of a career military officer who later became an admiral. Duvall majored in drama at Principia College (Elsah, Illinois), then served a two-year hitch in the Army after graduating in 1953. Duvall began attending The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre In New York City on the G.I. Bill in 1955, studying with Sanford Meisner along with Dustin Hoffman, with whom Duvall shared an apartment. Both were close to another struggling young actor named Gene Hackman. Meisner cast Duvall in the play "The Midnight Caller" by Horton Foote, a link that would prove critical to his career as it was Foote who recommended Duvall to play the mentally disabled Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), his motion picture debut.Duvall began making a name for himself as a stage actor in New York, winning an Obie Award in 1965 playing incest-minded longshoreman Eddie Carbone in the off-Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge," a production for which his old roommate Hoffman was assistant director. He found steady work in episodic TV and appeared as a modestly billed character actor in motion pictures, appearing in Arthur Penn's The Chase (1966) with Marlon Brando, and in Robert Altman's Countdown (1968) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People (1969), both of which he co-starred with James Caan.He was also memorable as the heavy who is shot by John Wayne at the climax to True Grit (1969) and was the first Major Frank Burns, creating the character in Altman's Korean War comedy MASH (1970). He also appeared as the eponymous lead in George Lucas' directorial debut, THX 1138 (1971). It was Coppola, casting The Godfather (1972), who reunited Duvall with Brando and Caan and provided him with his career breakthrough as Mob lawyer Tom Hagen. He received the first of his six Academy Award nominations for the role.Thereafter, Duvall had steady work in featured roles in such films as The Godfather: Part II (1974), The Killer Elite (1975), Network (1976), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Occassionally, this actor's actor got the chance to assay a lead role, most notably in Tomorrow (1972), in which he was brilliant as William Faulkner's inarticulate backwoods farmer. He was less impressive as the lead in Badge 373 (1973), in which he played a character based on real-life NYC policeman Eddie Egan, whom his old friend Gene Hackman had won an Oscar playing, in fictionalized form, as Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971).It was his appearance as Lt. Colonel Kilgore in another Coppola picture, Apocalypse Now (1979), which solidified Duvall's reputation as a great actor. He won his second Academy Award nomination for the role, and was named by the Guiness Book of World Records as the most versatile actor in the world! Duvall created one of the most memorable characters ever assayed on film, and gave the world the memorable phrase "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."Subsequently, Duvall proved one of the few established character actors to move from supporting to leading roles, with his Oscar-nominated turns in The Great Santini (1979) and Tender Mercies (1983), the later of which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Now at the summit of his career, Duvall seemed to be afflicted with the fabled "Oscar Curse" that had overwhelmed the careers of fellow Academy Award winners Luise Rainer, Rod Steiger, and Cliff Robertson. He could not find work equal to his talents, either due to his post-Oscar salary demands or due to a lack of perception in the industry that he truly was leading man material. He did not appear in the The Godfather: Part III (1990) as the studio would not give in to his demands for a salary commensurate with that of Al Pacino, who was receiving $5 million to reprise Michael Corleone.His greatest achievement in his immediate post-Oscar period was his acclaimed characterization of the grizzled Texas Ranger in the TV mini-series "Lonesome Dove" (1989) (mini), for which he received an Emmy nomination. He received a second Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the Soviet dictator Stalin (1992) (TV), and a third Emmy nomination playing Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in _Man Who Captured Eichmann, The (1996)_ .The shakeout of his career doldrums was that Duvall eventually settled back into his status as one of the premier character actors in the industry, rivaled only by his old friend Gene Hackman. Duvall, unlike Hackman, also has directed pictures, including the documentary _We're Not the Jet Set (1975)_ , Angelo My Love (1983) and Assassination Tango (2002). As writer-director, Duvall gave himself one of his most memorable roles, the lead of the preacher on the run from the law in The Apostle (1997), a brilliant performance for which he received his third Best Actor nomination and fifth Oscar nomination overall. The film brought Duvall back to the front ranks of great actors, and was followed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for A Civil Action (1998).Robert Duvall will long be remembered as one of the great naturalistic American screen actors in the mode of Spencer Tracy and his frequent co-star Marlon Brando. His performances as Boo Radley in "To Kill a Mockingbird," Jackson Fentry in "Tomorrow," Tom Hagen in the first two "Godfather" movies, Frank Hackett in "Network," Colonel Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now," Bull Meechum in "The Great Santini," Mac Sledge in "Tender Mercies," Gus McCrae in "Lonesome Dove," and Sonny Dewey in "The Apostle" rank as some of the finest acting ever put on film. It's a body of work that few actors can equal, let alone surpass. Spouse Luciana Pedraza (2005 - present), Sharon Brophy (1 May 1991 - 1996) (divorced), Gail Youngs (August 1982 - 1986) (divorced), Barbara Benjamin (1964 - 1975) (divorced).
A Night in Old Mexico (2006) , The Berkeley Connection (2006) , The Last Full Measure (2007) , We Own the Night (2007) , Lucky You (2007) , The Godfather: Mob Wars (2006) , "Broken Trail" (2006) , The Godfather: The Game (2006) , Thank You for Smoking (2005), Kicking & Screaming (2005) , Secondhand Lions (2003) , Open Range (2003) , Gods and Generals (2003) , Assassination Tango (2002) , John Q (2002) , The 6th Day (2000) , A Shot at Glory (2000) , Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) , A Civil Action (1998) , Deep Impact (1998) , "Saturday Night Live"(1998) , The Gingerbread Man (1998) , The Apostle (1997) , The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996) , Sling Blade (1996) , Phenomenon (1996) , A Family Thing (1996) , The Scarlet Letter (1995) , The Stars Fell on Henrietta (1995) , Something to Talk About (1995) , The Paper (1994) , Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993) , Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) , Falling Down (1993) , Stalin (1992) , Peste, La (1992) , Newsies (1992) , The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980 (1992) , Rambling Rose (1991) , Days of Thunder (1990) , A Show of Force (1990) , The Handmaid's Tale (1990) , Convicts (1990) , "Lonesome Dove" (1989) , Colors (1988) , Hotel Colonial (1987) , Apocalypse Pooh (1987) , Let's Get Harry (1986) , Belizaire the Cajun (1986) , The Lightship (1986) , Waylon Jennings: America (1986) ,The Natural (1984) , The Stone Boy (1984) , The Terry Fox Story (1983) , Tender Mercies (1983) , The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper (1981) , True Confessions (1981), The Great Santini (1979) , Apocalypse Now (1979) , "Ike" (1979) , Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) , The Betsy (1978) , Ike: The War Years (1978) , "The Godfather Saga" (1977) , The Greatest (1977) , The Eagle Has Landed (1976) , Network (1976) , The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) , The Killer Elite (1975) , Breakout (1975) , The Godfather: Part II (1974) , The Conversation (1974) , The Outfit (1973) , Badge 373 (1973) , Lady Ice (1973) , Joe Kidd (1972) , The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972) , Tomorrow (1972) , The Godfather (1972) , Lawman (1971) , THX 1138 (1971) , The Revolutionary (1970) , MASH (1970) , "The F.B.I." (1969) , The Rain People (1969) , True Grit (1969) , "The Mod Squad"(1969) , Bullitt (1968) , The Detective (1968) , "Judd for the Defense" (1968) , Countdown (1968) , "Run for Your Life" (1968) , Flesh and Blood (1968) , "The Wild Wild West" (1967) , "Cimarron Strip" (1967) , Cosa Nostra, Arch Enemy of the FBI (1967) , "Combat!" (1967), "T.H.E. Cat" (1967) , "The Time Tunnel"(1967) , Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966) , "Shane" (1966) , "Felony Squad" (1966) , "Hawk" (1966) , "Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre" (1966) , The Chase (1966) , "The Defenders" (1965) , Nightmare in the Sun (1965) , "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1965) , "The Fugitive" (1965) , "The Outer Limits" (1964) , "Kraft Suspense Theatre" (1964) , Captain Newman, M.D. (1963) , "Arrest and Trial" (1963) , "Stoney Burke"(1963) , "The Virginian" (1963) , "The Twilight Zone" (1963) , "Route 66" (1963) , "The Untouchables"(1963) , To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) , "Naked City" (1962) , "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1962), "Shannon" (1961) , "Cain's Hundred" (1961) , "Great Ghost Tales" (1961) , "Armstrong Circle Theatre"(1960) , "Playhouse 90" (1960)
