Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and filmmaker. With a career spanning seven decades, he is regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. He has received an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, four Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Duvall began his career on TV with minor roles in the 1960s on The Defenders, Playhouse 90 and Armstrong Circle Theatre. He 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. Other early roles include Captain Newman, M.D., Bullitt, True Grit, M*A*S*H, THX 1138, Joe Kidd, and Tomorrow, the last of which was developed at the Actors Studio and is his personal favorite.
Duvall won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as an alcoholic former country music star in the film Tender Mercies. His other Oscar-nominated films include The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini, The Apostle, A Civil Action, and The Judge. Other notable films include The Outfit, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, Network, True Confessions, The Natural, Days of Thunder, Rambling Rose, Falling Down, The Paper, Sling Blade, Gone in 60 Seconds, Open Range, Crazy Heart, Get Low, Jack Reacher, Widows, and Hustle.
Throughout his career, Duvall has starred on 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. His other Emmy-nominated roles are in the CBS miniseries Lonesome Dove, the HBO film Stalin, and the TNT film The Man Who Captured Eichmann.
Early life and education
Duvall was born January 5, 1931, in San Diego, California, to Mildred Virginia Duvall, an amateur actress, and Virginia-born Rear Admiral William Howard Duvall, United States Navy. The second of three sons, he has an elder brother, William Jr. and a younger brother, John, 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 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.
Career
Early career: 1952–1969
Theater
Duvall began his professional acting career with the Gateway Playhouse, an Equity summer theater based in Bellport, Long Island, New York. Arguably his stage debut was in its 1952 season when he played the Pilot in Laughter in the Stars, an adaptation of The Little Prince, at what was then the Gateway Theatre.After a year's absence when he was with the U.S. Army, Duvall returned to Gateway in its 1955 summer season, playing: Eddie Davis in Ronald Alexander's Time Out for Ginger, Hal Carter in William Inge's Picnic, Charles Wilder in John Willard's The Cat and the Canary, Parris in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and John the Witchboy in William Berney and Howard Richardson's Dark of the Moon. The playbill of Dark of the Moon indicated that he had portrayed the Witchboy before and that he would "repeat his famous portrayal" of this character for the 1955 season's revival of this play.
For Gateway's 1956 season, he played the role of Max Halliday in Frederick Knott's Dial M for Murder, Virgil Blessing in Inge's Bus Stop, and Clive Mortimer in John Van Druten's I Am a Camera. The playbills for the 1956 season described him as "an audience favorite" in the last season and as having "appeared at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and studied acting with Sandy Meisner this past winter".
In its 1957 season, Duvall appeared as Mr. Mayher in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, as Hector in Jean Anouilh's Thieves' Carnivall, and the role which he once described as the "catalyst of his career": Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, from July 30 to August 3, 1957, and directed by Ulu Grosbard, who was by then a regular director at the Gateway Theatre. Miller himself attended one of Duvall's performances as Eddie, and during that performance he met important people which allowed him, in two months, to land a "spectacular lead" in the Naked City television series.
While appearing at the Gateway Theatre in the second half of the 1950s, Duvall was also appearing at the Augusta Civic Theatre, the McLean Theatre in Virginia and the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The 1957 playbills also described him as "a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse", "a member of Sanford Meisner's professional workshop" and as having worked with Alvin Epstein, a mime and a member of Marcel Marceau's company. By this time, also July 1957, his theatrical credits included performances as Jimmy in The Rainmaker and as Harvey Weems in Horton Foote's The Midnight Caller.
Already receiving top-billing at the Gateway Playhouse, in the 1959 season, he appeared in lead roles as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Maxwell Archer in Once More with Feeling, Igor Romanoff in Peter Ustinov's Romanoff and Juliet, and Joe Mancuso in Kyle Crichton's The Happiest Millionaire.
At the Neighborhood Playhouse, Meisner cast him in Tennessee Williams' Camino Real and the title role of Harvey Weems in Foote's one-act play The Midnight Caller. The latter was already part of Duvall's performance credits by mid-July 1957.
Duvall made his off-Broadway debut at the Gate Theater as Frank Gardner in George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession on June 25, 1958. This play closed three days later after five performances. His other early off-Broadway credits include the role of Doug in the premiere of Michael Shurtleff's Call Me by My Rightful Name on January 31, 1961, at One Sheridan Square and the role of Bob Smith in the premiere of William Snyder's The Days and Nights of BeeBee Fenstermaker on September 17, 1962, until June 9, 1963, at the Sheridan Square Playhouse.
His most notable off-Broadway performance, for which he won an Obie Award in 1965 and which he considers his "Othello", was as Eddie Carbone, again, in Miller's A View from the Bridge at the Sheridan Square Playhouse from January 28, 1965, to December 11, 1966. It was directed again by Ulu Grosbard with Dustin Hoffman. On February 2, 1966, he made his Broadway debut as Harry Roat, Jr in Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. This played at the Shubert Theatre and George Abbott Theatre and closed on December 31, 1966, at the Music Box Theatre. His other Broadway performance was as Walter Cole in David Mamet's American Buffalo, which opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on February 16, 1977, and closed at the Belasco Theatre on June 11, 1977.
Television
In 1959, Duvall made his first television appearance on Armstrong Circle Theater in the episode "The Jailbreak". He appeared regularly on television as a guest actor during the 1960s, often in action, suspense, detective, or crime dramas. His appearances during this time include performances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, The Untouchables, Route 66, The Twilight Zone, Combat!, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, T.H.E. Cat, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, The F.B.I., and The Mod Squad.Film
His film debut was as Boo Radley in the critically acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird. He was cast in the film on the recommendation of screenwriter Horton Foote, who met Duvall at Neighborhood Playhouse during a 1957 production of Foote's play, The Midnight Caller. Foote, who collaborated with Duvall many more times over the course of their careers, said he believed Duvall had a particular love of common people and ability to infuse fascinating revelations into his roles. Foote has described Duvall as "our number one actor".After To Kill a Mockingbird, Duvall appeared in a number of films during the 1960s, mostly in midsized parts, but also in a few larger supporting roles. Some of his more notable appearances include the role of Capt. Paul Cabot Winston in Captain Newman, M.D., Chiz in Countdown, and Gordon in The Rain People. Duvall had a small part as a cab driver who ferries McQueen around just before the chase scene in the film Bullitt. He was the notorious malefactor "Lucky" Ned Pepper in True Grit, in which he engaged in a climactic shootout with John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn on horseback.