Oscar winner Robert Duvall dies | tagesschau.de | EUROtoday

As of: February 16, 2026 8:57 p.m

Robert Duvall was considered one of Hollywood’s nice actors. He appeared in additional than 130 movies – together with classics comparable to “Apocalypse Now” and “The Godfather”. Now the Oscar winner died on the age of 95.

Cold-blooded villains in Westerns have been significantly his specialty. And Robert Duvall himself stated he most well-liked to play these roles. In 1969, alongside John Wayne, he performed the infamous bandit Ned Pepper in “The Marshal.” An viewers of thousands and thousands knew him from the western sequence “Way into the Wilderness.” Shooting it was one of many highlights of his life, Duvall as soon as defined.

Critics thought of Duvall to be one of the crucial necessary actors of the New Hollywood alongside Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson. He additionally made his mark in lots of movies in supporting roles – for instance as a mafia lawyer in “The Godfather”. For this function, Duvall was nominated for an Oscar.

He earned one other Oscar nomination for “Apocalypse Now,” through which he performed the insane Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore and razed a village to the bottom simply so he may surf there. Duvall was nominated for an Oscar a complete of seven instances

Oscar for finest actor

However, he solely gained the award as soon as: in 1984 as finest actor in Horton Foote’s “Comeback of Love”. There he performed the function of washed-up nation singer Mac Sledge, who overcomes his alcohol dependancy.

In the Nineties, Duvall took on roles of historic figures extra usually, for instance in 1992 in “Stalin” and in 1996 Adolf Eichmann in “The Man Who Hunted Eichmann”.

Parents persuaded him to take up performing

His mother and father persuaded him to get into performing, Duvall stated in an interview with the army journal We Are The Mighty in 2020. He studied drama at a small faculty and found his love for performing there.

After army service within the mid-Fifties, he realized his craft in New York on the Neighborhood Playhouse, quickly sharing an residence with Dustin Hoffman. Gene Hackman was additionally considered one of his buddies and fellow college students on the time.

After Broadway roles, Duvall made his movie debut in 1962 alongside Gregory Peck, because the eccentric Boo Radley within the racism drama “Who Troubles the Nightingale.”

Marlon Brando as a job mannequin

His personal idol was Marlon Brando, with whom he shared the display in “A Man is Hunted”, “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now”. “He was groundbreaking,” Duvall enthused in an interview with We Are The Mighty. Brando turned the performing world inside out. Duvall stated he additionally loved working with Tom Cruise. Together they appeared in entrance of the digicam for the racing driver movie “Days of Thunder” (1990) and the crime movie “Jack Reacher” (2012).

When he was requested in regards to the finish of his profession on the age of over 80, Duvall stated in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Of course I’m thinking about quitting. That’s clear. Or should I drool all over the set at some point? I’m keeping my options open, project by project.”

Fell asleep peacefully at residence

A number of weeks earlier than his ninety fifth birthday, Robert Duvall posted a brief video of his power coaching on Facebook. In it, the “screen veteran” sits on a chair and lifts a dumbbell. The actor writes that he all the time stored match for filming. But he by no means went to the fitness center, preferring tennis, swimming or horse using.

According to his spouse, Duvall died on Sunday on the age of 95. “Yesterday we said goodbye to my beloved husband, treasured friend and one of the greatest actors of our time,” stated Luciana Duvall. Her husband “fell asleep peacefully at home.”