Robert Duvall, Oscar-Winning Giant of New Hollywood Era, Dead at 95

The actor was renowned for his work in the Godfather series, as well as classics like M*A*S*H, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini, and Tender Mercies  Obituary Robert Duvall, Oscar-Winning Giant of New Hollywood Era, Dead at 95 The actor was renowned for his work in the Godfather series, as well as classics like M*A*S*H, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini, and Tender Mercies By Tim Grierson Tim Grierson Catherine O’Hara, a Comedy Great From ‘SCTV’ to ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ Dead at 71 Bela Tarr, Revered ‘Sátántangó’ Director, Dead at 70 Brigitte Bardot, French Actress Who Embodied the Sexual Revolution, Dead at 91 View all posts by Tim Grierson February 16, 2026 Robert Duvall in 1981. Chuck Fishman/Getty Images Robert Duvall, the legendary character actor who specialized in playing rugged, complicated men, died on Sunday. He was 95. Duvall’s wife, Luciana, confirmed the actor’s death in a note shared on Duvall’s official Facebook page, writing that Duvall “passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort.” A cause of death was not given. “To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller,” Luciana wrote. “To me, he was simply everything. His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court. For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented. In doing so, he leaves something lasting and unforgettable to us all. Thank you for the years of support you showed Bob and for giving us this time and privacy to celebrate the memories he leaves behind.” In a film career that began in the early 1960s, Duvall was a central figure in the New Hollywood of the 1970s, adding grit and soul to legendary works from directors such as George Lucas, Robert Altman, and, most notably, Francis Ford Coppola. An Oscar winner who also proved to be a fine director in his own right — he earned an Academy Award nomination for his lead performance in his superb 1997 drama The Apostle — he lent a steadying presence to movies, proving to be a warm, paternalistic onscreen figure as he grew older. But Duvall was also no-nonsense, refusing to suffer fools and committed to his craft, even if it sometimes caused him to clash with filmmakers. “Directors say actors are difficult to work with — well, what about directors?” he once asked. “It’s our face that goes up there; it’s only their name.” Duvall was born Jan. 5, 1931, raised by a father in the Navy. “We moved a lot because of being in a military family,” he recalled of his childhood. “We lived in San Diego and then Annapolis, Maryland, at the Naval Academy. I remember seeing a movie when I was really young at Camp Pendleton for a dime back in the 1930s, when we lived in Mission Hills in San Diego.” After serving in the Army himself, he studied acting in New York, befriending contemporaries such as Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. “The feeling was that Bobby was the new Brando,” Hoffman later said. “I felt he was the one, and probably I wasn’t.” Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century After several years in theater, Duvall got his film break when he was cast as the kindly, misunderstood outsider Boo Radley in the Oscar-winning 1962 adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. (Horton Foote, who wrote the screenplay based on Harper Lee’s novel, and his wife had seen Duvall in a stage production about a year earlier; when casting for the film was underway, they suggested the relative unknown.) From there, he continued collecting supporting parts, including in 1969’s The Rain People, a film from a young director named Francis Ford Coppola. But the next decade was when Duvall rose to prominence, first as the ornery Major Frank Burns in the 1970 antiwar comedy M*A*S*H, reuniting with Robert Altman, who’d previously cast him in 1967’s Countdown. A year later, he was the imperiled everyman in George Lucas’ minimalist dystopian sci-fi drama THX 1138, following it up with The Godfather, where he got to work opposite his hero, Marlon Brando. They’d previously been in the Arthur Penn drama The Chase together, but The Godfather allowed Duvall a chance to spend more time around the venerated actor. His co-star James Caan would “crack a joke and it’d take Brando three seconds to get it,” Duvall recalled. “He was like the godfather of actors. Dustin Hoffman, me, and Gene Hackman used to go to Cromwell’s Drugstore a couple of times a week in New York City. And if we mentioned Marlon once, we mentioned him 25 times.” Duvall possessed a Brando-like intensity in the Seventies, whether as the coldly strategic Tom Hagen in the Godfather pictures or as Frank Hackett, the soulless, hotheaded executive in Sidney Lumet’s bruising satire Network. He c