Robert Duvall

Actor | Director

Born Jan. 5, 1931 in San Diego, CA

Despite working regularly in theater, film (“To Kill a Mockingbird”) and TV throughout the 1950s and ’60s, it wasn’t until the early 1970s when he appeared in “MASH” and as consigliere Tom Hagen in “The Godfather” and “The Godfather II” that Robert Duvall hit his stride as a bona fide serious movie star.
Not blessed with conventional leading man looks, Duvall became known for playing an iconic series of manly tough guys, including Lt. Col. Bill (“I love the smell of napalm in the morning”) Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now” and the bullying Lt. Col. “Bull” Meacham in “The Great Santini.”

As country-western singer Mac Sledge in 1983’s “Tender Mercies,” Duvall won his first Oscar (after three previous nominations), followed later that decade by an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for his performance in the acclaimed TV miniseries “Lonesome Dove.”

As the years progressed, Duvall eased into hand-in-glove roles as craggy, world weary, and/or warmly wise types in such features as “Days of Thunder,” “Wrestling Ernest Hemingway,” “Sling Blade” and “Secondhand Lions.”

The hardworking actor has also written and directed several films including “The Apostle” and “Assassination Tango,” in which he also starred.

He also earned Oscar nominations for 1997’s “The Apostle” (lead actor) and again, the next year, for “A Civil Action” (supporting actor).
Through his Butcher’s Run Films, Duvall most recently produced the award-winning TV miniseries “Broken Trail” and the Oscar-nominated feature “Crazy Heart.”

The actor has been married and divorced three times. He wed his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza, in 2005. She is 41 years his junior.

— Gary Goldstein for the Los Angeles Times Feb. 19, 2010