The legendary US actor was nominated for seven Oscars and won for his role as a washed-up country singer in Tender Mercies.
Published on February 16, 2026
Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall, best known for his work in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, has died at the age of 95, his wife announced in a Facebook post.
“For each of his roles, Bob gave his all to his characters and the truth of the human spirit they represented,” Luciana Duvall said in a statement Monday.
Duvall is best known for his powerful roles, such as his portrayal of Tom Hagen of the Corleone mafia family in The Godfather.
He also played Lt. Col. Bull Meacham in The Great Santini and the title character in Stalin, as well as the broken and fallen characters in Tender Mercies and The Apostle.
The son of a US Navy Admiral and an aspiring actress, Duvall grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, United States. After graduating from Principia College in Illinois and serving in the US Army, he moved to New York City, where he roomed with Dustin Hoffman and befriended Jane Hackman while the three struggled with acting students.
After starring in various television shows, Duvall made a big impression in his first forays into the big screen, such as his film debut as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Duvall got the part at the suggestion of Horton Foote, the film’s screenwriter, who liked Duvall’s work in one of his plays. Foote later wrote the 1983 film Tender Mercies for which Duvall won an Academy Award for Best Actor as a washed-up country singer.
Duvall was nominated for six more Oscars, including his work in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now. Duvall played the off-kilter, surfing-obsessed Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore.
The character’s famous line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”, became legendary.
In all, Duvall appeared in nearly 100 films. And when he got tired of Hollywood, he made his own movies. He wrote, directed and won an Oscar acting nomination for The Apostle, the story of a struggling preacher.
Duvall did the same with Ascension Tango, a film that allowed him to showcase his passion for tango and Argentina, where he met his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza.
Later in life, Duvall divided his time between Los Angeles, Argentina and a farm in Virginia, where he converted a barn into a tango dance hall.