Robert Selden Duvall (/duːˈvɔːl/; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Duvall started his career on stage before transitioning to film and television.
Duvall made his Broadway debut in the play Wait Until Dark in 1966. He returned to the stage in David Mamet's play American Buffalo in 1977 earning a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play nomination. He made his feature film acting debut portraying Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Other early roles include in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), Bullitt (1968), True Grit (1969), M*A*S*H (1970), THX 1138 (1971), Joe Kidd (1972), and Tomorrow (1972), the later of which was developed at The Actors Studio and is his personal favorite.
Duvall won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film Tender Mercies (1983). His other Oscar-nominated films include The Godfather (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Great Santini (1979), The Apostle (1997), A Civil Action (1998), and The Judge (2014). Other notable roles include in The Outfit (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), The Conversation (1974), Network (1976), True Confessions (1981), The Natural (1984), Days of Thunder (1990), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), Rambling Rose (1991), Falling Down (1993), The Paper (1994), The Scarlet Letter (1995), The Apostle (1997), Open Range (2003), Crazy Heart (2009), Get Low (2010), Jack Reacher (2012), and Widows (2018).
Throughout his career he has starred in numerous television programs. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for the AMC limited series Broken Trail (2007). His other Emmy-nominated roles were in the CBS miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989), the HBO film Stalin (1992), and the TNT film The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996).
Early life
Duvall was born January 5, 1931, in San Diego, California, to Mildred Virginia Duvall (née Hart), an amateur actress, and Admiral William Howard Duvall, a Virginia-born United States Navy rear admiral. The second of three sons, he has an elder brother, William Jr. and a younger brother, John (1934–2000), who was an entertainment lawyer. His mother was a relative of American Civil War General Robert E. Lee, and a member of the Lee Family of Virginia, while his father was a descendant of settler Mareen Duvall. Duvall was raised in the Christian Science religion and has stated that, while it is his belief, he does not attend church. He grew up primarily in Annapolis, Maryland, site of the United States Naval Academy. He recalled: "I was a Navy brat. My father started at the Academy when he was 16, made captain at 39 and retired as a rear admiral." He attended Severn School in Severna Park, Maryland, and The Principia in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama from Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, in 1953.
His father had expected him to attend the Naval Academy, but Duvall said "I was terrible at everything but acting—I could barely get through school". He again defied his father by serving in the United States Army after the Korean War (from August 19, 1953, to August 20, 1954) leaving the Army as private first class. "That's led to some confusion in the press," he explained in 1984, "Some stories have me shooting it out with the Commies from a foxhole over in Frozen Chosin. Pork Chop Hill stuff. Hell, I barely qualified with the M-1 rifle in basic training". While stationed at Camp Gordon (later renamed Fort Gordon) in Georgia, Duvall acted in an amateur production of the comedy Room Service in nearby Augusta, Georgia.
In the winter of 1955, Duvall attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, under Sanford Meisner, on the G.I. Bill. During his two years there, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and James Caan were among his classmates. While studying acting, he worked as a Manhattan post office clerk. Duvall remains friends today with fellow California-born actors Hoffman and Hackman, whom he knew during their years as struggling actors. In 1955, Duvall roomed with Hoffman in a New York City apartment while they were studying together at the Playhouse. Around this time, he also roomed with Hackman, while working odd jobs such as clerking at Macy's, sorting mail at the post office, and driving a truck.
