Tag: Character Actors

R.I.P. Robert Duvall

CC – Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer

Yesterday I got a three-word text message from my son Connor: Kilgore is dead.

I knew, of course, exactly who he was referring to—Robert Duvall, the great actor who passed away yesterday at the age of 95. More specifically, Connor was calling out one of Duvall’s most memorable characters, that of Lt. Colonel Kilgore, the cheerfully psychopathic Army commander in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. 

Everyone, it seems, has a favorite Duvall role. For many young dudes these days, it is Kilgore. For others, it’s the soft-spoken but iron-willed Tom Hagen in the Godfather films. For still others, it is the authoritarian Marine dad in The Great Santini, or the fearless Texas Ranger Augustus McCrae. No matter what kind of character he was playing, Duvall’s own, real-life character always shone through: smart, fierce, tough, and comfortable in his own skin. 

Being a mega-film-nerd, my definitive Duvall role was that of THX 1138, the titular character in George Lucas’s first film, which is still one of the most daring and visually stunning movies ever made. THX 1138 also marked one of the few films in which Duvall got to play the lead. Most of the time, he was cast in supporting roles, working in the background. Invariably, this allowed him—like Kilgore in his helicopter—to swoop in and steal the movie. 

Although he trained with many famous Method actors, he was not generally considered to be one himself. Yet, he could hang with the De Niros, Pacinos, and Hoffmans of the world with seemingly effortless ease. Indeed, as an actor, he could hang with anybody. 

For many (White) guys my age, Duvall represented the ideal American man. German/Irish but still cool. Macho but not toxic. Smart but not showy. 

And funny. Even in the midst of mass-slaughter, Kilgore is funny. So is Santini. So, in his own way, is THX 1138. One of my favorite, later roles that Duval played is that of the craggy old Marine who helps Tom Cruise in the 2012’s Jack Reacher. With just a few lines of dialogue, and a barely suppressed, ghoulish chuckle, he manages to deliver some of the funny moments in recent cinema. 

Godspeed, Mr. Duvall…!

R.I.P. Gene Hackman

My parents divorced when I was a little kid. My mom was struggling with mental illness (undiagnosed, at the time) and so I went to live with my father and his new wife, my step-mother Eileen. I saw my mom mostly on the weekends, and we would invariably go to the movies. I probably saw over fifty movies in the theater per year, all with my mom.

I seldom went to the movies with my father, and even more seldomly when it was just the two of us. The last time I remember was in 1992. Eileen was out-of-town with my brother and sister, so Dad and I went to see Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. It’s a great movie, and both my father and I loved it. We especially admired Gene Hackman’s performance as the villainous sheriff Little Bill Daggett, who, as Hackman himself revealed, is a kind of precursor to the modern right-wing movement. 

My dad and I went out to dinner after the movie, and we shared our favorite moments from the film. It’s one of my fondest memories. I thought of it this morning when I read that Hackman had died. And I thought of something else, too. It occurred to me that the last movie I saw alone with my mother was also a Gene Hackman film, 1985’s Twice in a Lifetime. It’s about as different a film from Unforgiven as one can possibly imagine, with Hackman playing a completely different kind of character. And yet, it was still Hackman. Still low-key. Still forceful. Still brilliant.

What are the odds that the two last movies I saw with each of my parents alone were both Hackman films? Pretty good, actually. He was in a lot of movies. In fact, you could argue that he was the most versatile, compelling, and attractive character actor in Hollywood history. He played villains and heroes, and everything in between, across genres from action to mystery to sci-fi. In Twice in a Lifetime, he played an unassuming everyman who, on the tail-end of middle-age, leaves his wife to make a new start. He was also Lex Luthor in Superman. And Pop-eye Doyle in The French Connection. And the blind guy in Young Frankenstein. 

Being a writer of mysteries, I’m particularly fond of Authur Penn’s 1975 film Night Moves, in which Hackman played a world-weary P.I. searching for a missing girl. It’s one of trademark, understated performances, and yet it crackles with energy. That was his gift. 

Godspeed, Mr. Hackman…!!!