{"id":179560,"date":"2026-02-17T07:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=179560"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:36:45","slug":"army-vet-robert-duvall-95-passes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=179560","title":{"rendered":"Army Vet Robert Duvall, 95, passes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-179561 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/duvall.jpg?resize=300%2C218&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/duvall.jpg?resize=300%2C218&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/duvall.jpg?resize=458%2C333&amp;ssl=1 458w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/duvall.jpg?w=474&amp;ssl=1 474w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Robert Duvall, arguably one of the greatest actors in our lifetimes, has passed at the tender young age of 95.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s safe to say his time in the service was uneventful &#8211; unlike his Navy father, who was a fast-tracker in the Navy.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>His father had expected him to attend the Naval Academy, but Duvall said &#8220;I was terrible at everything but acting\u2014I could barely get through school&#8221;. He instead served in the United States Army after the Korean War, from August 19, 1953, to August 20, 1954, leaving as private first class. &#8220;That&#8217;s led to some confusion in the press,&#8221; he explained in 1984,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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&#8221;. \u00a0While stationed at Camp Gordon in Georgia, he appeared in an amateur production of the comedy <i>Room Service<\/i> in nearby Augusta.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By the dates, it would appear young Mr. Duvall was a stereotypical &#8217;50s draftee &#8211; get in, get out, done.<\/p>\n<p>After that, Duvall bounced around stage productions through the mid-50s, getting a few semi-anonymous TV roles.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"vector-sitenotice-container\">\n<div id=\"siteNotice\">\n<div id=\"centralNotice\" class=\"cn-Wikicurious_AustinPublicLibraryMarch2026readers\" data-nosnippet=\"\">\n<div id=\"TX-central\" class=\"cnotice georegion georegion-TX-central\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<div id=\"cnotice-main\">\n<div class=\"cnotice-message-container\">\n<div class=\"cnotice-message\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"mw-content-container\"><main id=\"content\" class=\"mw-body\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"bodyContent\" class=\"vector-body ve-init-mw-desktopArticleTarget-targetContainer\" aria-labelledby=\"firstHeading\" data-mw-ve-target-container=\"\">\n<div id=\"mw-content-text\" class=\"mw-body-content\">\n<div class=\"mw-content-ltr mw-parser-output\" dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>In 1959, Duvall made his first television appearance on <i>Armstrong Circle Theater<\/i> in the episode &#8220;The Jailbreak&#8221;. 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 <i>Alfred Hitchcock Presents<\/i>, <i>Naked City<\/i>, <i>The Untouchables<\/i>, <i>Route 66<\/i>, <i>The Twilight Zone<\/i>, <i>Combat!<\/i>, <i>The Outer Limits<\/i>, <i>The Fugitive<\/i>, <i>T.H.E. Cat<\/i>, <i>Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea<\/i>, <i>The Time Tunnel<\/i>, <i>The F.B.I.<\/i>, and <i>The Mod Squad<\/i>.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_Duvall\">Wiki<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/main><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>1962 marked his film debut as Boo Radley in &#8220;To Kill A Mockingbird&#8221;. Minor roles followed (remember Steve McQueen running around San Francisco in a taxi? Duvall was the cab driver) culminating as Lucky Ned Pepper in 1969&#8217;s &#8220;True Grit&#8221;.\u00a0 This line may ring a bell &#8211; &#8220;I call that brave talk from a one-eyed fat man.&#8221; (Apparently the wrong thing to say.)<\/p>\n<p>The &#8217;70s made him a star. He played the original MAJ Frank Burns in &#8220;M*A*S*H&#8221;, and really rocketed to stardom as the Corleone family consigliere in the &#8220;Godfather&#8221; movies. One notable moment in 1979&#8217;s &#8220;Apocalypse Now&#8221; is probably one of the top five famously <em>misquoted<\/em> movie lines: what LTC Kilgore actually says is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn&#8217;t find one of &#8217;em, not one stinkin&#8217; dink body. But the smell! You know \u2013 that gasoline smell&#8230; the whole hill! Smelled like&#8230; victory.\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1L2qXzMS9Tg\">Napalm YouTube<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>During his career Mr. Duvall played a variety of military-related roles. One standout was as &#8220;Bull&#8221; Meachum in &#8220;The Great Santini&#8221; (got an Oscar nomination for that &#8211; should have gotten the award, too.) Probably one of his best-known roles was as a retired Texas Ranger, Captain Gus McCrae, in &#8220;Lonesome Dove&#8221;.\u00a0 Go to www.imdb.com and look up his credits.<\/p>\n<p>Over 145 credited appearances, both as the star and as a character actor. His presence alone could lift an otherwise dreary movie to higher levels (see &#8220;days of Thunder&#8221; or &#8220;Gone in 60 Seconds&#8221; for examples.) Eight Oscar nominations, one win (for &#8220;Tender Mercies&#8221;) &#8211; hardly seems like enough, does it.<\/p>\n<p>Not bad for a PFC who couldn&#8217;t shoot. If you see his name in the credits &#8211; watch it. It&#8217;s just that simple.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Duvall, arguably one of the greatest actors in our lifetimes, has passed at the tender young age of 95. It&#8217;s safe to say his time in the service was uneventful &#8211; unlike his Navy father, who was a fast-tracker in the Navy. His father had expected him to attend the Naval Academy, but Duvall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-army","category-we-remember"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-KI8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}