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Legendary Actor Robert Duvall Dies
The beloved star of 'Lonesome Dove' and 'The Godfather' was 95
Robert Duvall, who was widely considered one of the greatest actors of his generation, has died. He was 95.
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In iconic roles as Gus McCrae (Lonesome Dove), Tom Hagen (The Godfather) and Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore (Apocalypse Now), Robert Duvall seared those characters into cinematic history, imbuing them with a deep humanity, authenticity and gritty realism that stuck with viewers around the world. That's how he established himself as one of the best character actors of our time, as AARP noted in 2010.
Duvall, who died at his home in Middleburg, Virginia, on Sunday at the age of 95, excelled at portraying men “estranged from society by their own choosing,” as AARP observed. That was true whether he was inhabiting the role of an itinerant Texas preacher wrestling with his unorthodox past in The Apostle (1997) or bringing the haunted hermit Felix Bush to life in Get Low (2010), a role that also earned him a best-actor nomination at AARP's Movies for Grownups Awards.
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Duvall and his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza. He met her in Argentina and they married in 2005.
Michael Buckner/Getty Images for SXSW
The actor, whose astonishing career spanned more than 75 years, worked well into his 90s. His final two films, The Pale Blue Eye and Hustle, were both released in 2022, when he was 91. In 2014, Duvall told AARP: “I could have finished [working] 30 years ago, but if the work is novel, I accept it … I try to think that I have potential and possibility until the day I stop working.”
Duvall (center, with Robert Downey Jr., left, and Dax Shepherd) became the oldest person to be nominated for a supporting-actor Oscar for his work on 2014's "The Judge." He was 84 at the time.
Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
He once called himself a “late bloomer,” according to the Turner Classic Movies website, and indeed, he won his first Emmy in 2007 at 75 for his performance in Broken Trail.
The 1989 miniseries "Lonesome Dove" introduced Duvall (left, with Rick Schroder) to new fans.
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Duvall had always been quiet about his health, denying rumors of a stroke in 2016 to shock jock Howard Stern. When he turned 90 in 2021, he attributed his longevity on the People magazine television show to his “wonderful wife,” Luciana Pedraza, “and I have good friends, and try to work out and keep in some kind of shape.” He lived a tranquil life on a 360-acre horse farm in Fauquier County, Virginia, and also had a home in Argentina.
The son of a Navy rear admiral (William) and an actor (Mildred Hart Duvall), Robert Selden Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, California. According to IMDb, he was descended from both George Washington and Robert E. Lee. As a boy, Duvall spent summers with his uncle on a ranch in northern Montana learning to ride horses, a skill that came in handy for cowboy roles such as Gus McCrae, the charming retired Texas Ranger of 1989’s Lonesome Dove. (He won a Golden Globe award for his portrayal, and also received a Primetime Emmy nomination.) “It was something I never forgot and seeds were sewn even before I decided I wanted to act,” he shared with American Cowboy magazine in 2014.
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