Robert Duvall Biography

Working in theatre in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he also appeared on TV, before making his film debut in 1962, as Boo Radley, in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.

During his long film career, in which he has worked with some of Hollywood's greatest directors, including a long association with Francis Ford Coppola, Duvall has frequently played troubled, lonely characters.

Probably Duvall’s most iconic moment was his performance as the crazed Colonel Kilgore, in Coppola’s sprawling jungle epic, ‘Apocalypse Now’, in which the actor delivered probably the most famous line in the movie – "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!”

Duvall's several Oscar nominations include one for his performance of a brutish military father, who victimises his family, in ‘The Great Santini’. For his portrayal of a has-been country singer, in ‘Tender Mercies’, he earned his first Academy Award for Best Actor.

One of Duvall's greatest personal triumphs was the production of ‘The Apostle’, the powerful tale of a fallen Southern preacher who finds redemption. Duvall wrote the script 15 years before and was unable to find a backer, so in the mid 1990s he financed the film himself. Directing and starring in the piece, Duvall earned considerable acclaim, including another Oscar-nomination for Best Actor.

During the 1990s his films, though not always successful, brought him steady work and a great variety of roles, while throughout, Duvall has continued to work on stage, and has recently done voice-over work for TV commercials.