Robert Duvall, the acclaimed actor known for his roles in “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” has died at the age of 95, his wife confirmed on Monday.
His death on Sunday was announced by his wife Luciana Duvall. “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,” she wrote.
Duvall won an Oscar for best actor and was nominated six other times over his six-decade career. He received his Academy Award in 1983 for playing a washed-up country singer in “Tender Mercies.”
His most memorable characters include the soft-spoken, loyal mob consigliere Tom Hagen in the first two installments of “The Godfather” and the maniacal Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now.” As Kilgore, he uttered one of cinema’s most famous lines: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
“It was an honor to have worked with Robert Duvall,” Oscar winner Al Pacino, who acted alongside Duvall in “The Godfather” films, said in a statement. “He was a born actor as they say, his connection with it, his understanding and his phenomenal gift will always be remembered. I will miss him.”
Director Francis Ford Coppola called his loss “a blow.” “Such a great actor and such an essential part of American Zoetrope from its beginning,” Coppola said in a statement.
Duvall delivered his breakout performance at age 31 as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” He often said his favorite role was the grizzled Texas Ranger in the 1989 TV mini-series “Lonesome Dove.”
British actress Jane Seymour, who worked with Duvall on the 1995 film “The Stars Fell on Henrietta,” paid tribute on Instagram: “We were able to share in his love of barbecue and even a little tango. Those moments off camera were just as memorable as the work itself.”
Actor Alec Baldwin described Duvall’s “vast career” in a video tribute, noting how his performance in “To Kill a Mockingbird” used no dialogue yet “just shatters you.”
Film critic Elaine Mancini once called Duvall “the most technically proficient, the most versatile, and the most convincing actor on the screen in the United States.”
