But what’s cropping up this week is “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” the outrageous line from Robert Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now because Duvall died on Sunday at 95 and The Boss is telling me about his great performances.
The Boss first saw him in To Kill a Mockingbird, the film version of Harper Lee’s famous novel, where he played Boo Radley, the town outcast living next door to Atticus Finch; Boo ended up rescuing Scout and Jem from a vicious attack. Duvall didn’t utter a single word in the movie, but it put him on the map: he reportedly stayed out of the sun for eight weeks to acquire his pasty colour, and studied socially isolated people to help him project a shy and twitchy look.
Australia’s Bruce Beresford later directed Duvall in Tender Mercies, where the actor played a burnt out country singer who encounters a widowed young mother and pulls himself together. Beresford was astonished by Duvall’s ability to immerse himself in the role, calling it “creepy, at first.” Duvall won an Oscar for it.
In The Godfather, alongside Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, Duvall played Tom Hagen, the Irish-American lawyer who advised this ruthless band of Italians without ever being fully trusted – a role The Boss reckons resonates today since Hagen turns a blind eye to corruption and crime while pretending he isn’t really corrupt himself.
Duvall appeared in numerous Coppola films, but his 15-minutes in Apocalypse Now saw his swaggering Lt Col Kilgore bizarrely expanding on Wagner’s symphonies and the joy of surfing while bombs exploded around him and napalm fires burned - before uttering the immortal line.
But according to The Boss, Lonesome Dove is Robert Duvall’s standout: the television miniseries based on Larry McMurtry’s fine story about two retired Texas rangers who plan one last adventure - driving a herd of cattle from their south Texas town, all the way up to Montana.
Duvall plays Augustus McCrae, a battle-scarred and aging cowboy with dissolute ways but a good heart, and a loyal friend to Captain Woodrow F. Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Duvall’s Gus is a fun character and full of life, talk and “poke.” Both he and Jones were nominated for Emmys and the series was curiously funded by the flamboyant Australian tycoon Christopher Skase through his Qintex Entertainment, which served as production company alongside CBS. Skase flamed out soon after, trying to take over MGM.
That didn’t dent Duvall’s affection for the series or the role, which he regarded as his best, and his favourite. About it, he said: “Let the English play Hamlet and King Lear, and I will play Augustus McCrae, a great character in literature.”
Duvall lived with his fourth wife, Luciana, 41 years his junior, on a horse farm west of Washington, DC. He had many dogs and long had a liking for Blue Heelers, one of which was usually named Boo. Woof!
