Full of Character
By Michael J. Roberts
“One of the four or five top actors in the world.” ~ Francis Ford Coppola on Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall was no movie star - shite he looked like he was born middle aged, and yet managed to became one of the most sought after and consistently employed film actors in the last 60 years. He had a career on the stage since 1952 and didn’t get to Broadway until 1966, 4 years after making a ripple in film as Boo Radley in Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird. His unconventional path as an actor began after a stint in the army – a surprise to many given his father was a navy Rear Admiral and he’d grown up as a navy brat in several locations. Key to his success was a grounding in theatre which produced enduring friendships with other young and struggling actors like Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and James Caan.
Duvall was a consistent presence on TV all through the 1960s until his film work became constant enough to leave the small screen jobs alone for a couple of decades. After the Boo Radley breakthrough Duvall picked up small parts in Hollywood productions with Arthur Penn’s The Chase being notable until fellow TV figure Robert Altman cast Duvall and James Caan as NASA astronauts in the timely Countdown, two years prior to the actual moon landing. Small dues paying parts against ageing stars Frank Sinatra and John Wayne in The Detective and True Grit came and Duvall also made the invaluable connection with Francis Ford Coppola in The Rain People, before Altman gave him the gift role of Frank Burns in the unexpected smash hit M*A*S*H in 1970.
Duvall graduated from support to a leading role with George Lucas’s debut feature, THX1138. Duvall was ideal for the role of an almost featureless, anonymous prole, subsuming himself to the part, an ability that endeared him to directors everywhere. He starred opposite Jon Voight in The Revolutionary before another support in Lawman in the company of legends Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan. Francis Coppola then gave Duvall the role of a lifetime as Tom Hagan, a supporting part in one of the seminal films of the time, The Godfather, reuniting him with great friend James Caan who played Sonny Corleone. Duvall more than held his own in the stellar cast and set himself up for a period of leading roles or significant ensemble parts.
Philip Kaufman cast him as Jesse James in The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid and continuing the western theme John Sturges put him in Joe Kidd opposite the box office heft of Clint Eastwood. A brace of passable crime films followed until Coppola gave him a cameo in The Conversation before reprising his Tom Hagan role to great effect in The Godfather II. Maverick director Sam Peckinpah re-teamed Duvall with James Caan in the dynamic if eccentric The Killer Elite and John Sturges tapped him again to play a German colonel in the excellent WWII thriller The Eagle Has Landed. Duvall showed his range again by playing Dr, Watson against Nicol Williamson’s Holmes in Herbert Ross’s superb, The Seven Percent Solution, with Laurence Olivier as Moriarty.
By now Duvall was one of the premier character actors in film - his presence was not a star wattage that could guarantee finance and box office, but his name in the cast list meant it would be an interesting and engaging film and Duvall’s performance would always be committed and full of conviction. Duvall made Network for Sidney Lumet, a huge and surprising hit with an all-star cast that satirised news-as-entertainment, opposite Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Peter Finch. A chance to act with Olivier again in Daniel Petrie’s The Betsy was a rare poor choice given the tedious result and Duvall recovered thanks to Coppola again by making a lot out of the smallish role of Kilgore in the sprawling Apocalypse Now. Duvall’s ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’ speech would dog him until the end of his days - inescapable and indelible in pop culture.
The next projects delivered the actor two choice roles that defined his career – the first demonstrated that he was not a star who could generate box office even when the film was one of his best, in The Great Santini. The role of martinet Bull Meechum was one he could inhabit given his upbringing and no less an authority than William Goldman used it as an example of the difference between a movie star and a character actor. He outlined a story that had Robert Redford wanting to alter the scene where Bull plays one-on-one basketball with his son and ends up aggressively bouncing a ball on the teen's head saying ‘You gonna cry?’ Goldman made the point that Redford was protecting his image, or ‘brand’ and would not be seen as an arsehole, whereas Duvall simply played the scene as written. Duvall followed that career best turn with the superb, if downbeat, True Confessions, opposite white hot Robert De Niro. The memorable film was helmed by Ulu Grosbard, an old theatre colleague of Duvall’s who helped coax a superb performance from an actor at the top of his game.
The actor’s excellence was acknowledged by the Academy Awards when Duvall won the Best Actor award for his 1983 film, Tender Mercies. Duvall played country singer Mac Sledge in a first rate script by Horton Foote and was directed by Australian Bruce Beresford, who was approved by Duvall as part of his contract clause, such was his clout at the time. In keeping with his status Duvall worked for Barry Levinson in the top shelf sports pic, The Natural, starring Robert Redford. A couple of foreign tinged international productions failed to make an impression before the unlikely character of Dennis Hopper cast him in the police drama Colors, opposite young firebrand Sean Penn where Duvall showcased his impeccable reputation as a brilliant character actor for the next generation.
After an Emmy nominated return to TV for the superior series Lonesome Dove, the next decade saw an inevitable winding down in the quality and scope of Duvall’s career, populated with glossy commercial pieces like Days of Thunder, The Paper and Deep Impact – interspersed with more personal or authentic projects like Rambling Rose or Sling Blade. He made a great fist of the part of the retiring police officer in Joel Schumacher’s edgy Falling Down, opposite Michael Douglas, which showcased his seemingly effortless ability to inhabit a character. One of his most personal projects in the 90s was a film he wrote, directed and starred in, The Apostle, an examination of a Pentecostal preacher who has to rebuild his life. The part saw him nominated for another Best Actor award - two other films garnered him Supporting Actor nominations in 1998’s A Civil Action and for 2014’s The Judge, opposite Robert Downey Jnr.
The 21st century offered him more of the same – big budget gloss in Gone In 60 Seconds, The 6th Day and smaller, more considered roles in Gods and Generals and Open Range , a fine western with Kevin Costner. He appeared in the quirky Thank You For Smoking and in the downbeat masterpiece The Road and in the lovely Jeff Bridges vehicle Crazy Heart. After the aforementioned late career highpoint of The Judge he made a nice impact for Steve McQueen in the excellent Widows, and at the ripe old age of 91 gave gravitas to the Adam Sandler film, Hustle.
Robert Duvall carved out a distinct and remarkable career as an A-List character actor who with his honesty and authenticity could augment and improve any film he was cast in. Not blessed with movie star looks he nevertheless found a way to make himself essential to the success of several of the most distinguished American films of all time, no small feat. He refused to reprise Tom Hagen for a third time in The Godfather III because he considered the disparity between his salary and Pacino’s (four times higher) to be inappropriate and stood his ground, forcing Coppola to kill off the character. Duvall put integrity and honour to his work at a premium and once he committed to a project he gave a whole hearted effort every time. He passed away quietly at age 95 in 2026, fading out gracefully into the setting sun – not quite the same messy exit that his great friend Gene Hackman had managed just months earlier, but an appropriate and proper end to a full and well lived life.