One of the worst parts of reaching my age is seeing so many artists and creatives from my wonder years passing away. Orbiting senior discount age had made me less sensitive to some, yet others still hit with that gut-punch feeling of true irreplaceability. Someone who’s made waves across pop culture through decades of fine work. Yesterday over lunch, I learned that actor Robert Duvall, at the age of 95, passed away at his home in Virginia, as reported on social media by his widow, Luciana Pedraza, who shared a birthday with her husband. A veteran of over 80 movies and at least half as many TV shows, Duvall had a body of work that is really challenging to encapsulate in a single column.

On the big screen, Duvall’s really career took off in his late 30s, when he began accumulating roles in projects such as director Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H” (1970), the dark comedy set during the Korean War (based on the book by Robert Hooker and W.C. Heinz) which spun off a wildly successful, long-running TV series. In the movie, Duvall played Major Frank Burns, a hypocritical US Army surgeon and tent-mate of irreverent draftee doctors, Captains “Hawkeye” Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and “Duke” Forrest (Tom Skerritt). Unlike the late Larry Linville’s buffoonish Frank Burns in the series, Duvall played a grim, deadly serious hypocrite who prayed on his knees interminably while carrying on an affair with the unit’s Head Nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Duvall’s Frank Burns was a formidable antagonist, and the movie some of its edge when the character is carted off in a straitjacket after assaulting Hawkeye at breakfast over a humiliating practical joke.

Note: Sadly, one of Duvall’s costars from “M*A*S*H,” actor Bud Cort (“Harold and Maude,” “Dogma”), recently passed away as well, at age 77.

The 1970s would see Duvall in three classic movies directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The first of which is one of my all-time favorite films, “The Godfather” (1972). Duvall would play Tom Hagan, the unofficially adopted son of and “consiglieri” (advisor/lawyer) to mafia don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), as well as the don’s son, Michael (Al Pacino), who would carry on the ‘family business’ after his father’s death. “The Godfather” would win Best Picture at the 1973 Oscars, as would its arguably equalled sequel/prequel, “The Godfather Part II” (1974) two years later. Duvall brought great understated depth to Hagan, an Irish-German American with no Sicilian blood, who was nevertheless skillfully versed in the Corleone ways, including making “an offer he can’t refuse” to film producer Woltz (John Marley). Hagan’s best scene is when he pours a drink to steady himself before delivering tragic news to the don regarding his oldest boy, Sonny (James Caan). Despite his expanded role in Part II, Duvall did not return for “The Godfather Part III” (1990) over an alleged salary dispute. Duvall’s absence in that film is one of several issues that soured its overall success.

Riding a wave of great films, Duvall would costar as UBS TV network president Frank Hackett in the brilliant Paddy Chayefsky-written/Sidney Lumet-directed dramatic satire “Network” (1976). “Network” is a prophetic film that forecast reality TV programming and the current slew of partisan-slanted news outlets (such as Fox and Newsmax) which prioritize sensationalist propaganda over straight reporting. In the film, UBS news network begins a nosedive into self-parody after freshly-fired news anchor Howard Beale (posthumous Oscar-winner Peter Finch) threatens to kill himself on live TV, which somehow transforms him into a half-assed prophet to the enraged masses (“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”). Hackett resists his network’s downward spiral into populism, until his cunning protégé Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) convinces him otherwise. Duvall is truly memorable as the formidable yet pathetic Hackett, who sees himself as the final word over his news division, until he kowtows to UBS shareholders. “Network” is another favorite film of mine from the 1970s, and Duvall carries his share of its power.

Duvall would go on to play the appropriately-named Lt. Col. Kilgore in Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (1979), a psychological drama set at the height of the Vietnam War, loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” The movie was a troubled production delayed by excesses and the lead actor’s heart attack, though it quickly became a cinematic masterpiece. Kilgore is a sadistic helicopter strike leader who sets the tone for this war-as-hell film. Kilgore’s mission is to assist Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on the first leg of his mission to locate Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a renegade officer whom Capt. Willard is ordered to “terminate with extreme prejudice.” A post-“Star Wars” Harrison Ford has a small role early on in the film, which makes sense, given that Coppola acted as friend and mentor to the young George Lucas, whose first feature film would star Robert Duvall (more on that one later) .

In 1984, Duvall, at age 53, would win an overdue Best Actor Oscar for his work as washed-up country singer Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies” (1983), where he did his own singing and played guitar for the film as well. The San Diego native completely immersed himself in the character. For full disclosure, I’ve not seen this film in its entirety, though I’ve seen enough of it to get a sense of Duvall’s incredible performance.

In 1997, Duvall would wear several hats as writer, star, producer and director of his underrated Southern drama, “The Apostle.” In the film, Duvall played charismatic Pentacostal preacher Euliss F. “Sonny” Dewey, who becomes enraged when he learns his miserable, abused wife (Farrah Fawcett) is carrying on an affair with a younger man. The volatile Dewey publicly beats the man with a baseball bat, leading to his death. Seemingly undeterred in carrying on with the Lord’s work (as he sees it), the film ends with Dewey starting a new flock with his prison work crew. Duvall’s passion project was nominated for several Oscars.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy Roles

In 1955, 24-year old Korean War veteran Duvall would attend the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, which he attended on a G.I. bill with fellow California-born classmates Gene Hackman (1930-2025) and Dustin Hoffman. In addition to his mute-but-memorable role as Arthur “Boo” Radley in 1962’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” some of Duvall’s early work included roles in sci-fi/fantasy TV shows. Even after his career blossomed and he’d won his Oscar, Duvall would continue to do occasional roles in sci-fi films. With Duvall, it wasn’t about the genre. It was about the craft.

Among Robert Duvall’s most memorable roles in vintage sci-fi/fantasy TV was an hour-long 4th season episode of Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” titled “Miniature.” In the episode, Duvall played shy loner Charlie Parkes, a regular visitor to a local museum who becomes infatuated with a finely-detailed dollhouse. Peering into its rooms, he becomes enchanted by a beautiful doll he imagines to be a lonely woman in an abusive relationship. Losing himself in the fantasy, Charlie breaks the dollhouse’s glass in order to ‘save’ her, and he’s committed to a mental hospital. Upon release, Charlie sneaks back into the museum and takes refuge within its fantasy existence–becoming a new character in the dollhouse. While the hour-long installments of “Twilight Zone” were generally regarded as less effective than its half-hour episodes, “Miniature” remains one of the series’ best, at any length.

Duvall would then make two trips into “The Outer Limits” (1963-1964). The first was in season one’s “The Chameleon,” where he’d play Louis Mace, an expat American operative who is recruited once more after a crewed alien spaceship lands in a remote forest. Using a trace of alien DNA found near the ship, Mace is transformed into one of the creatures and sent to infiltrate them as a lost scout. The aliens see right through the disguise, and Mace impulsively kills one of them. The benevolent aliens forgive Mace. As his alien DNA begins to manifest, lifetime outlier Mace feels genuine kinship with the creatures, and he decides to return with them, over the objections of his superior officers.

The actor’s second sojourn into “The Outer Limits” came with the two-part season two episode, “The Inheritors,” where he played Adam Ballard, a scientist tracking the activities of several combat veterans shot in the heat with meteorite fragments that have somehow boosted their intelligence levels well beyond human norms. The men appear to be working in concert to build a spaceship and kidnap several disabled genius children. Fearing for the kids’ safety, Ballard later learns the men wish to help the children, by taking them to a world where they could be cured and become heirs to the legacy of an advanced alien race. This would be the original series’ only two-part episode.

Duvall would also guest-star in an episode of the colorful, single season Irwin Allen sci-fi TV show, “The Time Tunnel” titled “Chase Through Time” (1967), where he played an enemy agent from an unspecified hostile country who infiltrates the top-secret time travel operation called Project Tic-Toc (not to be confused with the 21st century video app) and plants a nuclear bomb. The pursuit begins when the saboteur escapes into the time tunnel, where he must be apprehended by heroic time travelers Doug (Robert Colbert) and Tony (James Darren)–leading them on the titular ‘chase through time.’

One of Duvall’s earliest sci-fi movies was 1967’s “Countdown,” which was directed by his future “M*A*S*H” director Robert Altman, and would star his future cast-mate from “The Godfather,” James Caan. The movie was less sci-fi and more speculative fiction, as it chronicles an intense Hail Mary pass to land a single US astronaut on the moon ahead of the Russians. In the film, Duvall plays senior astronaut Charles “Chizz” Stewart, a veteran military pilot who is bumped from the single-man flight over rookie civilian pilot, Lee Stegler (Caan). Prioritizing the mission over personal differences, Chizz works to help Lee, despite his own bitterness. Ultimately, Lee lands on the moon, and discovers a crashed Russian capsule with a dead crew. Fighting against time and limited life support, Chizz helps Lee find an emergency shelter launched ahead of his capsule. “Countdown” is a gripping, character-focused movie which was overshadowed by the real-life landing of Apollo 11 two years later, and sadly forgotten for the most part.

Duvall would bravely team with first-time feature film director George Lucas (well before his successes with “American Graffiti” and “Star Wars”) on his low-budget dystopian sci-fi movie, “THX-1138” (1971) which I covered extensively on this site several years ago. In short, Duvall played the title character, who lives in a bleak 25th century where people are reduced to hairless, loveless, chemically-dependent drones who live to service the policing machinery for their own subjugation. Through his roommate (and forbidden lover), THX is freed from his drug addiction and desperately wants out of his meaningless existence (a recurring theme in Lucas’ films). Shot guerrilla-style in the San Francisco Bay Area, the low-budget film was a financial failure, but was critically reappraised after the successes of Lucas’ later films. Once again, Duvall was absolutely fearless in his performance for this brilliant sci-fi film, which gave it the conviction it needed to work.

Duvall costarred as Fred Waterford in the first adaptation of writer Margaret Atwood’s one-degree-from-current-reality dystopia, “The Handmaid’s Tale” (1990), in which the tragically late Natasha Richardson (1963-2009) plays Kate, who is renamed “Offred” (‘of Fred’) after she is assigned to bear children for Waterford in the former United States (now renamed Gilead) where pollution has rendered most of the population sterile. Under this regime, fertile women have been stripped of civil rights and reduced to breeding stock for the wealthy and powerful (any of this ringing an alarm bell for Americans…?). I read a borrowed copy of the book years ago, and later rented the movie on VHS, but to be honest, I’ve not rewatched it since (despite owning the DVD). I haven’t seen the highly-praised Fox/Hulu series either, because it’s anxiety-inducingly close to current reality here in the United States under the current regime. It’s getting harder to recall a time when I naively assumed it couldn’t happen here…

Eight years later, Duvall would go on to a far more likable role as aged veteran astronaut and world-saving hero/martyr Sturgeon “Fish” Tanner in 1998’s underrated comet-disaster movie, “Deep Impact.” Directed by Mimi Leder, “Deep Impact” was sadly eclipsed by the bigger, sillier “Armageddon” (which came out the same year). “Deep Impact” was a more resonant, quasi-remake of “When Worlds Collide” (1951), with Earth facing a mass extinction event. The spaceship Messiah is sent to pulverize the giant deadly snowball with carefully-embedded nuclear weapons (not a good idea, by the way). The plan only partly succeeds, and Earth suffers catastrophic damage (including the premature destruction of the World Trade Center by three years), but, as dream president Morgan J. Freeman tells us, “The waters receded. Cities fall, but they are rebuilt. And heroes die, but they are remembered…” Just as Robert Duvall is remembered now, in the wake of his passing.

Duvall gave considerable dignity and bearing to the glossy, but run-of-the-mill sci-fi action movie “The 6th Day” (2000), which was directed by Roger Spottiswoode (who also shared a birthday with Duvall). The movie is essentially an earthbound “Total Recall” with clones instead of Martian mutants. Austrian oak Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as incongruously-named American helicopter pilot ‘Adam Gibson,’ who is cloned without his knowledge or consent. As Gibson unravels the conspiracy that killed his partner (Michael Rapaport), he meets Dr. Griffith Weir (Duvall), the heartbroken scientist behind commercialized cloning who unsuccessfully (and repeatedly) tried to clone his terminally ill wife (Wendy Crewson). Without Duvall’s tragic and poignant performance to elevate it, this popcorn flick would be entirely forgettable.

Whether gracing a mediocre project or a masterpiece, Robert Duvall was an actor forever honing and perfecting his craft. As memorable in the lead (“Tender Mercies”) as he was a wordless supporting role (“To Kill a Mockingbird”), there was no project Duvall couldn’t deliver on, which only reinforced his reputation as a consummate professional. He could, and would do whatever was needed with absolute conviction.

Robert Duvall was indeed irreplaceable.

Robert Duvall, January 5th 1931–February 16th, 2026