♪♪ ♪♪ [ Music from "Ride of the Valkyries" playing ] ♪♪ -I don't believe I know who you are.

♪♪ -I think Robert Duvall is probably America's greatest character actor.

He is the actor's actor.

He is the kind of actor that other actors want to be with, because they know that his presence will raise their game.

-I have a special practice.

I handle one client.

♪♪ -Without doubt, Robert Duvall is one of the most significant actors of the 1970s, and yet maintained that imperious form right into the '80s and '90s.

It's a tremendous career.

There's so much there and so much variety.

-I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

♪♪ -He was a very powerful actor.

He was very charismatic actor, but he was also a very subtle actor, too.

He could command the screen like very few other Hollywood stars could.

-You need anything, Mike, I'll be outside, all right?

♪♪ -Robert Selden Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, in California.

His father, William Howard Duvall, was an admiral in the Navy.

So it was an upbringing filled with discipline, filled with good schooling.

-His father was an admiral.

That's one of the highest ranks in the American military.

So they would have lived relatively posh and very military life.

They moved to Annapolis, where the Naval Academy is located.

The whole town is about the Navy.

-He had two younger brothers.

One of his brothers, John, actually became a lawyer and subsequently looked after all of Duvall's contracts.

So he managed to keep it in the family.

-Graduating from high school, Robert Duvall would go and spend a year in the Army.

But when he came out on the GI Bill, acting called to him.

He'd done a little bit of kind of stage work in his last year in the military.

He kind of toyed at local theater.

So he sort of caught the idea of becoming an actor.

So he would take the GI Bill money and put it toward acting classes in New York.

♪♪ -He decides to go to New York to be an actor, which must have gone down really big with his dad, and uh, gets into that whole scene.

This is a really burgeoning new kind of acting.

-He went to acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse to hone his skills and started looking for work.

-At this time in New York, as his peers in his classes, he struck up great friendships with both Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman, such that at different times, he shared a flat with with both of them, not together.

He kind of individually shared shared flats.

So the three of them sort of more or less emerged a very similar time.

But, yeah, it wasn't instant, of course, and he would have to work at Macy's, and he would have to sort of drive trucks.

Uh, you know, he would have to kind of fill in the blanks to kind of keep himself going.

But soon enough, stage roles would start to come.

But he, more than many of his peers really struck out into television.

-He went into television and into the theater long before he went into film, for several years.

And he began to be noted, especially in the theater, as someone to be reckoned with.

-He was slowly, slowly working towards his first film.

He made his screen debut in "To Kill a Mockingbird" as Boo Radley.

-And I saw someone carrying Jim.

-Well, who was it?

-Well, there he is, Mr.

Tate.

He'll tell you his name.

-His first film part was in a famous film called "To Kill a Mockingbird" with Gregory Peck.

Actually, he didn't have any dialogue in the film at all.

-His first great role, of course, was as Boo Radley in the adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird", the Harper Lee novel, and it was adapted by the famous playwright Horton Foote.

And Horton Foote had been to see Duvall perform in another one of his plays.

He'd come along, taking his wife along one evening to see him perform, and been quite taken with him as an actor.

But it wasn't until they were casting "To Kill a Mockingbird", it must have been maybe a year later, and they were starting to discuss who might play Boo Radley, that Horton Foote's wife said, "Do you remember that young guy we saw on stage and how interesting he was?"

And he did.

He said, "I remember that guy."

And they got him in, and that's how he was cast.

He really absorbed the idea of the reclusiveness of the character.

-In order to prepare for this, he actually spent months inside, he never went outside, in order to make his skin go even paler and to give himself the sort of dark rings under his eyes.

He bleached his hair.

And all I can say is everything works.

The minute you see him on the screen, you realize that this is a guy who is not quite there.

And yet, of course, everything has to be expressed through his facial gestures and his eyes.

It's a remarkable opening statement for any actor to make, and especially for him.

-You ask what happened?

It's your fault as much as mine.

-What?

-Yes!

Sure I should not argue with him.

But why should you sail with Karen?

Why should you take advantage of this old man?

Who are you?

I think you are running from somebody.

Jeff Cooper.

-He went from there to I think three episodes of "The Fugitive", David Janssen's wonderful series about doctor on the run and the miscarriage of justice.

"The Fugitive" was a really, really successful television program, and it was watched by millions of people all around the world.

So it was an astute move because it meant that even in the process of just being in three episodes, it would have been seen by many, many, many more people than he would have done if he'd made another three films.

So suddenly, he's got a familiarity, an audience has got a familiarity with his face.

-Years go by... -Robert Duvall starred opposite Marlon Brando in "The Chase."

-The night before Bubber goes to jail this last time, somebody tells him a story, and he acted mighty mean when he heard it.

Well, my wife was there and saw him, and she's frightened he's coming around for revenge.

-You tell your wife to forget about it because this is the last place in the world that Bubber's going to come to.

-"The Chase" actually was based on another play by Horton Foote, who was obviously his great supporter.

And it's a small role for Robert Duvall.

It's the story of Robert Redford's character who escapes from prison.

This kind of reprobate who comes back to his small town.

And Marlon Brando is kind of the cynical sheriff who runs the town by his rules.

And it's sort of confrontation between these two guys.

And Duvall is like the old friend of Redford's character.

-He holds his own against these guys.

I mean, this is, you know, let's face it, this is only really his second film.

But already you can see what makes him special, what makes him stand out.

-Lem, could a traveling jewelry salesman by the name of McCormack been on his way here to see you?

-No, I never heard of him.

Why?

-Well, he's dead.

-Dead?

-Yeah.

-Do they think he was killed?

-Yeah.

-Come on.

-When you think that the cast included Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, and Marlon Brando, he was able to stand up against them as an actor.

And indeed, he was better than most of them.

-Two.

-Two what?

-Calls.

They called twice.

The second was long distance.

-How do you know it was long distance?

-He put in a lot of change.

-He has almost a cameo role in "Bullitt", but like most of his roles, he makes the most of the time he has on screen.

He plays a cab driver who actually gives Steve McQueen some interesting information about the bad guys.

It's one scene virtually, and I don't know how he does it, but he sort of takes the moment that he has, it can be a few minutes, it can be, you know, it can be the whole film, and he just makes the most of it.

But it doesn't seem to matter to him.

He sort of can create these elastic times where you come away from "Bullitt", and you think, "I remember the guy in the cab."

-That's one of the best scenes in the film, when Robert Duvall as the cab driver, that's all.

He doesn't have much to say, but he somehow makes a mark.

He always did.

I've never seen a film with Robert Duvall in it in which he hasn't made a mark.

-You on some kind of trip?

-Yes.

-Where?

-West.

-Where west?

California?

-Yes.

-Why California?

-It's as far west as I can go.

-I thought maybe you were gonna meet your husband.

-"The Rain People" is very significant as a Duvall film because it's the first time he would work with Francis Ford Coppola, and the first time he'd worked with James Caan, as well.

And obviously, those two guys would have significant influence on his career to come.

It's a story of a character played by Shirley Knight, who's a pregnant mother who abandons her marriage because she can't see any future in it, and sets off across America.

So it's kind of a road movie in many respects.

And along the way, she picks up this American football kid, played by James Caan.

And on this kind of journey she goes on, she meets Duvall, as a local cop, as well.

He has a small role to play.

He comes across and sort of aids her, as well.

I think what's interesting is it's a development of the relationship with Coppola.

Duvall was already creating a good relationship with him.

I think he actually shared, during the making of it, he shared a flat with James Caan, as well.

So there was another roomie that he kind of got on very well with.

-Tell me, killer, what's the lady's story?

-She's run away from her husband.

-Is that so?

What for?

-She doesn't know.

-Is there any chance of him showing up here?

-It's a kind of road picture.

It's the sort of thing that would have happened at the time.

The critics loved it.

It didn't do very well at the box office, partly because it was kind of an independent film.

It wouldn't have been that widely distributed.

But it is one of these films you look back on, and you can see the beginning of three careers, really.

This was a very, very important film.

-I think it's best, Ned.

-Director Henry Hathaway cast Robert Duvall in the western "True Grit."

-She's nothing to me, nothing but a runaway.

-You and that ranger get moving double fast.

If I see you riding over that bald ridge to the north, I'll spare the girl.

You got five minutes.

-We'll need more than five minutes, Ned.

-I won't give you any more!

-He made his first western with John Wayne, which was "True Grit", based on the Charles Portis novel.

It turned out to be a huge success.

And he plays the bad guy in it, Ned Pepper.

He makes a wonderful presence.

He is a really good bad guy.

-He didn't get on at all well with John Wayne, although actually like John Wayne, he was a firm Republican.

He also didn't get on with Hathaway.

But a lot of people didn't get on with Henry Hathaway, who exploded in wrath regularly during his films and was quite difficult to deal with.

So he wasn't terribly happy with the film.

But at the same time, it was incredibly successful, and John Wayne won an Oscar for it.

-What's great about Duvall is that he's professional enough to let personal dislike or even enmity, he puts that aside because for the service of the film.

It's absolutely true of "True Grit."

-I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged in Fort Smith, at Judge Parker's convenience.

Which will it be?

-I call that bold talk for a one eyed fat man.

-Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!

-So you think you're, what, four or five films into his career, and he's worked with Brando, and he's worked with John Wayne, you know, with Gregory Peck.

So he hit the ground running with his film career.

-What's that?

-That's Martin-I, Frank.

-Finest kind.

We're training Ho-Jon to be a bartender.

Would you care to imbibe, sir?

-I don't drink.

-Jesus Christ, I think he means it.

-I think we've been had, Hawkeye.

-I think you're right, babe.

-He hadn't done much in the way of comedy until he did "M*A*S*H".

-"M*A*S*H" is a step up for Robert Duvall, a more significant role.

It's Robert Altman's satire on Vietnam, but sort of done through the prism of the Korean War.

You know, it's a story of the medical corps in Korea patching up these wounded men, and how they deal with it is through sort of a kind of gallows humor, led by the kind of rascal doctors played by Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould.

And poor old Robert Duvall is really the butt of the joke.

He's a fellow doctor, Frank Burns, who is just, you know, doesn't have a funny bone in his body in terms of competing for the humor.

But of course he's hilarious because he is kind of the focus of the wit that these two terrible doctors play on him.

-Really serious actors who can really do it, when they're in comedy, they don't play for laughs, they play it straight.

He plays it straight, and of course, he's much funnier as a result.

-For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

-Amen.

-Amen.

-And dear God, protect our young men on the field of battle, that they may return home to their dear ones And, dear God, protect our Supreme Commander on the field and our Commander in Chief in Washington, D.C.

-Frank, were you on this religious kick at home, or did you crack up over here?

-Frank, how long does this show go on?

-He is excellent in it because he doesn't do a caricature.

Because it's easy to do that, because these guys are, like, laid back and going against the rules.

He plays it straight.

And so it makes the picture not only funny, but it makes his character kind of strong in the face of just crumbling defeat.

And it was one of the biggest hits ever.

-Duvall was sought out by filmmaker George Lucas to star in the young director's debut film.

-You can.

I know you can.

-Then what?

Can't go on forever.

You know it can't.

-We could leave.

-Duvall had met George Lucas on the set of "The Rain People", and out of this sprung this film called "THX 1138".

It was based on George Lucas's student film, which depicted a dystopian future which is almost sort of sterile.

This is a society where, via the use of drugs, that sexual passion has been eradicated and everybody is almost kind of robotic.

And Duvall is the central character who, in a kind of "1984"-like way, will fight the system.

-It's a great role, and it's a great performance.

The film did not do well.

It did not do well with the audience, and it did not do well with the critics.

Actually, I think the reason behind that was that Lucas was trying to ape the continental way of filming.

It's not a film that you expect from an American director.

However, it has now become, of course, a cult, if only to see Duvall in that particular role.

♪♪ We tend not to think of Duvall as somebody who has one central role that you think of him.

But if you did, his role as the consigliere to Don Corleone in "The Godfather", Tom Hagen, will probably be it.

-Virgil Sollozzo called.

We're going to have to give him a day sometime next week.

-We'll discuss it when you come back from California.

-When am I going to California?

-I want you to go tonight.

I want to talk to this movie big shot and settle this business for Johnny.

-Well, "The Godfather" was really the big film which made Robert Duvall.

If he hadn't been made before, he was certainly made after "The Godfather."

-This picture became one of the icons of the cinema, and particularly of American cinema.

Robert Duvall as the consigliere, the kind of counselor to the Godfather, which he plays with a very quiet dignity because what Coppola does is he's also giving you an internal look at an Italian American family.

And Duvall plays an Irish sort of outsider as a consigliere.

It is very hard to do this because everyone else is doing the opposite of what he's doing in terms of acting.

You remember Duvall because of his stillness in this picture.

-If we lose the old man, we lose our political contacts and half our strength.

The other New York families might wind up supporting Sollozzo just to avoid a long, destructive war.

This is almost 1946.

Nobody wants bloodshed anymore.

-It's one of those performances that you just treasure for its subtlety, its presence, the fact that he can work with peers like Brando and Al Pacino, and actually, without being showy, steal the scene from them.

He's one of those actors who unwittingly, I think, steal scenes.

-That's a terrific story.

And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom?

They might like a story like that.

-They might.

They just might.

-He's so important, you know, to the whole makeup of Coppola's sort of vision.

It would be sort of crowned in Oscar nominations and Oscars, which Duvall would get an Oscar nomination himself.

It's a film that's remembered forever.

It's topped, or come near the top of top 10 lists at infinitum.

And in some senses, you know, for many people, he is Tom Hagen still.

-Set up in there.

You're crazy.

That's big league in there.

-And you're a busher.

They're not paying you enough not to tell me.

-All right, there's seven players and two punks.

-Sluggers?

-No, they're cheap labor.

-If there's more than two of them, I'll be back to see you.

-Like you said, they don't pay me enough.

-"The Outfit" is interesting because it's the first ostensible leading role for Robert Duvall.

And it's one of those kind of classic, gritty, '70s action thrillers.

Robert Duvall plays a guy who's got out of prison having robbed the wrong bank.

It's a bank that's being run by the kind of mob.

And it's kind of, will he go straight?

Will he kind of survive the mobsters coming for revenge?

Will he get his own peculiar plan sorted out?

-It is an absolute romp.

It's a hard hitting neo pulp, and he plays it absolutely to the hilt.

He's as tough as nails in it.

What's great about it is he can do this without sort of lapsing into any kind of, um, terrible sort of cliché or action man heroics.

You never forget all the way through the film that this is a real person.

He's just super tough.

-Sir, my client has answered every question asked by this committee with the utmost sincerity.

He has not taken the Fifth Amendment, as it was his right to do so.

In all fairness, I think the statement should be heard.

-No, no, I'm going to allow Mr.

Corleone to read his statement.

I'll put it... -"The Godfather Part II", if anything, is an even better film than "The Godfather."

It's the study of kind of the machinery of how kind of the mobsters took hold.

-Robert Duvall reprises his role, and we get to understand a lot more about who this character is, why he's there, and then you begin to understand sort of the solitariness of Duvall's playing this character brilliantly, interior, alone, and it makes perfect sense for him to come back in and deepen that role, which is what he did.

He deepened it.

Shows his skill as an actor, his enormous skill as an actor.

-Why do you hurt me, Michael?

I've always been loyal to you.

I mean, what is this?

-[ Speaking Italian ] -[ Speaking Italian ] -So those two films, massive successes as they were, propelled him into the first league of Hollywood actors.

-All I know is this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting.

-We're not a respectable network.

We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get.

-Well, I don't want any part of it.

I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse.

-That's very commendable of you, Nelson.

Now sit down.

-Sidney Lumet's "Network" was one of the most controversial films of the period.

-Sidney Lumet's "Network", of course, is the story of a television anchorman who goes completely off the rails.

And he's, of course, a wonderful performance from Peter Finch.

But within the setup, Robert Duvall is the kind of television executive who offers the kind of corporate view, the kind of the man of the company, the organization.

And Lumet talked about the fact that he loved the idea that Duvall had come from a military background because he said so many of those executives were former military men.

Lumet wanted this guy to be the complete opposite of what Peter Finch is in the film, who's this kind of disintegrating intellectual.

Whereas Duvall would be this kind of rigid disciplinarian.

-I'm putting the network news show under programming.

Mr.

Ruddy has had a mild heart attack and is not taking calls.

In his absence, I'm making all network decisions, including one I've been wanting to make a long time.

You're fired.

I want you out of this building by noon.

I'll call the security guards and have you thrown out if you're still here.

-It would've been easy for Duvall to have sent this part up.

He doesn't.

And you look at Robert Duvall playing this network head, and it shows you what the business is.

It was a massive success.

It was recognized by the critics.

It won two Oscars.

And he again was lauded as a great actor.

-You'll know what I'm talking about when you're a marine pilot.

-What if I decide not to go into the Corps?

-Well, you're going in, four years right after college.

I mean, if you want out after that, well, I mean, that's your choice, but you're going in.

-"The Great Santini" was one of his best films because he plays a military man who comes out of the military and can't settle into civilian life at all.

It's a very subtle performance and a very powerful one.

And it's not surprising that he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor.

-In "The Great Santini", he is an absolutely tyrannical military father.

I mean, he is one of those kind of monster fathers that you just, you know, who demands that their sons call them sir.

This is a deeply, deeply unattractive human being.

So how is it that he is so attractive on the screen?

How is it that we can't stop watching him?

You're still rooting for him in a funny sort of way, because, you know, at the end of the day that maybe something will change.

And he managed to do that.

He does manage to do it in this case without any kind of sentimentality.

He doesn't do sentimentality, and yet he can make you -- he can touch you to the heart.

He can touch you to the core.

-I changed my mind.

Let's go.

-No, you're not going to cheat the boy out of his victory.

Come on, be a good sport.

-Who the hell asked you anything?

-Don't you talk to me like that.

-I'll fight him, Mom.

-No, you won't.

Now, he beat you, and it was beautiful.

-Lillian, you better get in the house before I kick your butt.

-It was just beautiful.

-Now, I mean it.

Come on, let's go.

Hurry!

Come on.

-Let's not go.

-You better move, woman!

-Alright!

-I'm sure that Duvall drew a lot from his own father in portraying the part.

Pat Conroy, who wrote the novel and the screenplay on which it's based, said very much it was about his father, who was a military man.

It was kind of his story.

But you can't help but feel that Duvall, having had the background he did, must have drawn a lot from that.

-Captain Willard.

I carry priority papers from Com SAC Intelligence.

Two Corps.

I understand Letrang has briefed you on the requirements of my mission.

-What mission?

I haven't heard from Letrang.

-Sir, your unit is supposed to escort us into the Nung.

-Well, we'll see what we can do.

But just stay out of my way till this is done, Captain.

-Perhaps the most famous film he ever made from the view of the public was "Apocalypse Now", Francis Ford Coppola's amazing film.

-If any proof were needed that Robert Duvall could steal not just a scene, but an entire movie with what amounts to a cameo, then all you have to do is watch "Apocalypse Now."

He is on screen for 11 minutes.

This is a film that lasts for over three hours.

In "Apocalypse Now", he plays Colonel Kilgore.

He's the guy running the team on the beach.

-What he did in 11 minutes was embody the madness of Vietnam.

And the brilliance of Duvall is that you know he's the most terrifying person, you know he's utterly what is wrong with Vietnam and what's wrong with war.

Yet you kind of like him.

You kind of admire him.

You want to laugh with him.

He's something crazy and magical.

You know, he's this indomitable force of nature.

And that is kind of entirely what Coppola wants from the moment.

-He has the best line in the film, or certainly the most memorable line in the film, which everybody quotes, which is... -I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

You know, one time we had a hail bomb for 12 hours.

And when it was all over, I walked up.

We didn't find one of them, not one stinking dink body.

The smell, you know that gasoline smell?

The whole hill smelled like... ...victory.

-There's a wonderful gesture that Duvall does.

He almost kind of sighs, you know, "Smells like victory."

As if it's a blessing.

You know, as if he's the luckiest guy in the world.

All the madness and contradictions that Coppola is seeking in "Apocalypse Now" live in that moment.

And, you know, it's 11 minutes of movie history.

-Nice picture of Mom.

-Yes.

Isn't it?

Why don't you come and visit her next time I go?

I think she'd like to see you.

-The last time I saw her, she talked to me about purgatory and how much time I was going to spend there.

Life plus 99 years.

She still eating cereal with her fingers?

-Well, you know how she is.

She still thinks that the early martyrs didn't have spoons in the catacombs.

-Well, tell her they didn't have instant cream of wheat either.

-"True Confessions" is a Los Angeles crime film based on the true case of the Black Dahlia.

It's a very, very interesting film.

Very grim, very slow.

Duvall plays the cop who has an unfortunate past, which is about to catch up with him.

His brother is Robert De Niro, who is a monsignor in the church and very, very ambitious.

I think this is his greatest performance.

I think the film is an extraordinary movie.

It was highly underrated at the time, very undervalued.

It's still underrated.

-I used to work for you.

-Oh, yeah?

When was that?

-When you were running whores, I was your bagman in Wilshire Vice.

I did the payoffs for Brenda.

-He played with Robert De Niro in "True Confessions."

Again, a strong performance.

Like all of his performances, you had to look at him when he was on the screen.

You didn't really look at many other people, even Robert De Niro.

-♪ Let me know ♪ -- that's G -- ♪ If you always will want me ♪ ♪ Or if you'll wander ♪ ♪ Into another's arms ♪ A or A7, G.

♪ Let me know what you decide, dear ♪ ♪ And let me rest ♪ A.

♪ My head for a while ♪ -We all know by this time how versatile Robert Duvall is, but one thing we hadn't known is that he could actually sing.

Not only can he sing, he can actually write songs, which he does in "Tender Mercies", in which he plays an alcoholic, over-the-hill, has been country and western star who is trying and struggling to get his life back on track.

It's one of those sort of quiet films that could easily have slipped beneath the radar without, you know, sufficient attention.

Fortunately, the critics loved it.

Fortunately, it did hit a certain section of the audience, and they were rewarded immensely by a tremendously sensitive and heartbreaking movie.

The industry recognized his greatness by giving him the Oscar for Best Actor and Golden Globe.

-Do you think you ever will sing again?

-Well, I'll think about it once in a while.

Sometimes I think I'd like to earn a little money to make things a little easier around here, or to help out if you ever needed anything.

-I don't need any money.

-What's remarkable about that, I think, is that not only did he sing his own songs within it, he wrote half of them himself, as well.

So there was a guy who could play Tom Hagen or Colonel Kilgore and come along to another film and be a country and western star, and convincingly.

♪♪ -Did you ever play ball, Max?

-No, I never have.

But I make it a little more fun to watch, you see.

And after the day, whether you're a goat or a hero, you're going to make me a great story.

Okay.

I'll see you around.

-He played in "The Natural" as a hard bitten sports reporter.

It was a baseball film.

And a good one, too.

Barry Levinson directed it, and Robert Redford was in it, too, as the leading role.

-I like this film, and I like Duvall's performance in it because what it does is it shows him again in a period piece, which he is perfectly suited to.

It's something to do with his features, something to do with his face.

He's got a period face.

He can play modern.

There's no problem with that.

But he can slip into not the distant past, but the past, the American past the Depression era, or maybe a little earlier, perfectly naturally.

He doesn't need any kind of sort of, you know, huge wigs or makeup.

He fits.

He fits into the role very, very comfortably.

-Robert Duvall returned to television to star in the miniseries "Lonesome Dove."

-I tell you what, you ride on up there, clear out the Indians, build a little cabin, get a nice fire going in the fireplace, and me and Jake will gather a herd, and then we'll come on up.

-I'd like to see the herd that you and Jake could get.

A herd of horse, maybe.

-Well, you ain't no more a cattleman than I am, Call.

And you know it, too.

-He was getting parts in films all over the place, really.

Maybe the reason that he chose to do "Lonesome Dove" on the television, which was a TV series, was the quality of the script.

Whatever, I'm really glad he did it because it gives him a chance to work opposite Tommy Lee Jones as two aging cowboys.

And it's all about the death of the west and how, you know, the old guys were sort of the last gasp of the original pioneering spirit.

I couldn't think of any two better people to actually portray this.

He looks like a grizzled old cowpoke, but what he is, is a tough son of a bitch.

-Now, besides the whiskey, I think we'll require a little respect.

Now, I'm Captain Augustus McCrae.

This is Captain Woodrow F. Call.

Now, if you care to turn around, you can see how we looked when we was younger and the people around here wanted to make us senators.

-It's one of those stories and television series, I think, that sort of live on.

And I think a lot of people hold on to it very, you know, dearly.

It's like one of those kind of, "Oh, Lonesome Dove."

It's like almost therapy.

It's like something you can just put on and it's one of those wonderful kind of age long kind of pieces that are just so magnificent.

-He won a Golden Globe for his performance in that, and quite rightly.

And the series won a Golden Globe, as well.

-Baseball bat.

-What's that?

-Look, I take my baseball bat.

-You sell baseball bats?

-No, no no, no.

Keep for defense, under counter.

Defense!

-You mean he stole your baseball bat, but he paid for the soda.

-Oh, this guy's discriminating.

-That still doesn't count, Mr.

Lee.

Come on, let's go.

Thanks, Prendergast.

-[ Laughs ] Okay.

-"Falling Down" by Joel Schumacher was another good role for Robert Duvall, who plays a policeman in it.

-"Falling Down" is one of those underrated thrillers that really does deserve rediscovery.

Michael Douglas plays a normal guy, ostensibly normal guy, who flips out.

He gets caught in the traffic one day, and he just stops, and he just gets out of his car and starts to walk, leaving his car stuck in the traffic.

This kind of guy shouts at him, "Where are you going?

Where are you going?"

He just goes, "I'm going home."

We don't even know where home is.

And what begins is this kind of odyssey across LA, and Duvall makes a great counterpoint.

You know, Duvall is the aging cop facing retirement, who is given the task of bringing him in.

-The moral heart of this film, the center of this film is Duvall.

Robert Duvall is the key to this film.

I think that this is a wonderful performance.

-How could you be a burden to anyone?

Now, if William, or Bill, as I like to call him... -He likes Bill.

I call him Bill, too.

-If Bill said he was going home, could he have meant where his wife and child lived?

-Ex-Wife.

We shouldn't be in here.

-It's amazing kind of contrast that both of them do.

And then at the end of the picture, you understand what the title is about.

But it was very, very powerful film.

It still is a powerful film.

His part is powerful, and it grows on you as you see it.

-You accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

Are you ready for him?

Are you ready to follow and accept him at this very instant?

Now, if you open your heart and let him come in, he will stand with you whether you go home or whether you stay here with us.

-I'm not sure how religious a man Robert Duvall is, but he certainly conveyed religion extremely authentically in "The Apostle."

This is a film that he not only stars in, but he actually wrote and directed himself.

He believed in it so much that after he tried unsuccessfully to sell the script to various studios, he said, "Right, I'll do it myself."

He funded it himself and then directed it himself.

It's an astonishing piece of work.

He's a hellfire preacher.

He's a Pentecostal preacher whose wife runs off or has an affair with another man, whom he completely loses -- he gets drunk, and he beats him up with a baseball bat.

And the man eventually dies.

So he goes on the run.

He goes on the run, and he reinvents himself as another preacher down in Louisiana.

-It's an astonishing performance because you felt that although the man was a charlatan, he still deserved some sympathy, which is a difficult trick to do.

And he does it very well.

-I want you take my gold, my watch, my jewelry, hawk 'em, get every penny you can to help this ministry stay alive, you know, because I love this little church.

And, uh, hey, you never know how long the Lord's going to let you hang around.

-It got all of the critics praises.

Um, you can look at this picture again, and maybe in a way, you can see everything that his whole career is about in some ways.

And he was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor.

-Last night.

I was at a ball game.

It was the seventh inning stretch, and I was standing there, and I don't know why, but it occurred to me at that moment that unless you've proven that any, uh, what word should we use?

Chemicals.

-Poisons.

-All right, if you like that word, I'll use it.

Unless you've proven that any poisons actually reached the wells, there's no case.

-"Civil Action" is kind of interesting just in that there was this sort of vein of role that Duvall was offered, where he was very good as lawyers.

He was very good at certainly a kind of Southern kind of lawyer, you know, that kind of crafty man of the law that kind of worked in those kind of thrillers.

It's John Travolta.

It's the story of a company polluting a river and infecting the water, which is killing local children.

-Duvall was very passionate about this film.

He got it going.

He got it off the ground.

It got a lot of respect in the industry.

He got a lot of respect in it.

-If there's a God up there, he would have turned his back on us by now.

And whoever made humanity will find no humanity here.

No, sir.

No, sir.

So beware.

Beware.

-Do you ever wish you would die?

-No.

It's foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these.

-John Hillcoat's "The Road" presents us with a post-apocalyptic world in which a father and a son wander around a devastated landscape.

Robert Duvall plays an old man in the film whom they come across, and it's one of the best scenes in the film because when Robert really gets going in even a cameo part like that, he's the one you watch.

-And the thing about it is, of course, you never know when you encounter these people whether they're going to kill you, eat you, or help you.

And Duvall, as always, makes everything ambiguous.

That ambivalence and that that sense of not quite knowing which way he's going to play is, of course, one of his great secret weapons.

-This picture is remembered because of that moment that he's on the screen.

-I'm going to shower up and hit the rack.

Uh, Glen, make sure you hold your boys together tomorrow.

We don't want a lot of caterwauling.

-Will do, judge.

-Yeah.

I get it's been a while, Hank, but backing a car into a driveway to make getting out easier is a concept not dulled by time.

-Thank you.

-Right?

-Got it.

-Be my guest, please.

-"The Judge" offered Duvall a tremendous late role for him.

And a tremendous sort of opportunity to explore a character as an aged man.

It's a story of a young lawyer coming back to defend his father, who is a local judge in a sort of Southern town.

And the father has been accused of murder.

So everything is kind of reversed.

And he and his son, played by Robert Downey Jr., have become estranged.

They never -- they had a very difficult relationship.

So it is partly a film about, a courtroom thriller about this case, in which Downey Jr.

's character investigates the truth of what happened and why his father won't admit what happened.

But also, it's about a father and son bonding over, you know, over years of difference.

-I sat on the bench in that courtroom for 42 years.

People in this community trust me.

They trust the law.

Now, this -- this accident is a legal iron ball, Henry.

You can't screw it up, so don't.

-It's a performance that'll make you cry.

And he's nominated as Best Supporting Actor for the Oscars of that year.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Someday, this war is going to end.

-Well, his legacy is that he never gave a bad performance.

He has a strength about his acting and a subtlety which is quite exceptional.

And that's because he worked very hard at all his parts.

-And nobody has ever gunned down a New York police captain.

Never.

-He's got everything.

He's won everything that you can win and nominated for everything that you can win in his profession.

I hope he goes on forever.

He is just one of the greats.

-I'll do my best.

♪♪ -Robert Duvall's legacy is a series of extraordinary character roles.

Of all the films that he's done, even if they're only small roles, you remember them.

You remember the lines he said.

You remember the reactions he gave.

And I think that that is an extraordinary legacy.

And it's a very, very subtle legacy.

♪♪ -♪ If you'll just stand beside me all the way ♪ ♪ I'll do all the things that didn't matter ♪ ♪ Yesterday ♪ ♪ And I'll be everything this ♪