Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall, known for films such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, has died at the age of 95.
A statement confirming his death was posted on the actor's Facebook page from his wife, Luciana, saying he "passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort".
Blunt-talking, prolific and glitz-averse, Duvall won an Oscar for best actor and was nominated six other times.
Over his six-decade-long career, he shone in both lead and supporting roles and eventually became a director.
"To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller," the statement read.
"To me, he was simply everything.
"Thank you for the years of support you showed Bob and for giving us this time and privacy to celebrate the memories he leaves behind."
Duvall won an Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as an alcoholic former country music star in the 1983 film Tender Mercies, which was directed by Australian filmmaker Bruce Beresford.
But his most memorable characters also included the soft-spoken, loyal mob consigliere Tom Hagen in the first two instalments of The Godfather and the maniacal Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now.
The latter, which earned Duvall an Oscar nomination and made him a bona fide star after years playing lesser roles, saw him utter what became one of cinema's most famous lines.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning," his war-loving character — bare-chested, cocky and sporting a big black cowboy hat — muses as low-flying US warplanes bomb a beachfront tree line where he wants to go surfing.
That character was originally created to be even more over the top — his name was at first supposed to be Colonel Carnage — but Duvall had it toned down, demonstrating his meticulous approach to acting.
"I did my homework," Duvall told veteran talk show host Larry King in 2015.
"I did my research."
'Most convincing' actor in the US
Duvall, the son of a Navy admiral and an amateur actress, grew up in Annapolis, Maryland.
After graduating from Principia College in Illinois and serving in the US Army, he moved to New York, where he roomed with Dustin Hoffman and befriended Gene Hackman while they were struggling acting students.
Duvall was sort of a late bloomer in Hollywood — he was already 31 when he delivered his breakout performance as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
He would go on to play myriad roles — a bullying corporate executive in Network (1976), a Marine officer who treats his family like soldiers in The Great Santini (1979), and then his star turn in Tender Mercies.
Film critic Elaine Mancini once described Duvall as "the most technically proficient, the most versatile, and the most convincing actor on the screen in the United States".
Duvall had a knack for playing cowboys.
He won an Emmy for the television miniseries Broken Trail, appeared opposite John Wayne in True Grit, and picked up an Emmy nomination for the miniseries Lonesome Dove.
He often said his portrayal of the genial lawman-turned-cowboy Gus McRae in Lonesome Dove was his favourite role.
"I think I nailed a very specific individual guy who represents something important in our history of the Western movement," Duvall told the New York Times.
"After that, I felt I could retire, that'd I'd done something."
When he grew weary of Hollywood, Duvall made his own movies. He wrote, directed and won an Oscar acting nomination for The Apostle, the story of a conflicted preacher.
Duvall did the same with Assassination Tango, a movie that allowed him to exhibit his passion for the tango and Argentina, where he met his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza.
They were both born on January 5 but 41 years apart.
Duvall split his time between Los Angeles, Argentina and a 360-acre (146-hectare) farm in Virginia, where he converted the barn into a tango dance hall.
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