'Gone In 60 Seconds' And 'Days Of Thunder' Star Robert Duvall Dead At 95

Robert Duvall, one of Hollywood's most prolific and talented actors, passed away "peacefully at home" over the weekend, according to a statement released by his wife Luciana. "To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything," she wrote in a beautiful post on social media. Since his first role as Boo Radley in the iconic 1962 "To Kill A Mockingbird" Mr. Duvall has been entertaining the world. 

Duvall is perhaps best known for his Hollywood all-timer classics "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now". With seven Oscar nominations to his name, Duvall was rewarded, arguably too late, with a statue for his 1983 performance as a down-and-out country singer in "Tender Mercies." He also won two primetime Emmys and four Golden Globes. With 145 acting credits to his name, he surely had something in his oeuvre that anyone could relate to.  

Automotive and motorsport enthusiasts will most likely know Duvall as Harry Hogge, the brash crew chief for Tom Cruise's Cole Trickle who said "rubbin', son, is racin'" in the 1990 NASCAR dramedy "Days Of Thunder." Or perhaps you're like me and will never forget him as the soft-spoken quasi-patriarch Otto Halliwell in the 2000 Nic Cage vehicle "Gone in 60 Seconds." He even had a bit part in Steve McQueen's 1966 classic "Bullitt" playing a cab driver. 

Following a stint in the military Duvall retreated to New York City to cut his teeth on off-broadway plays. He joined a crop of up-and-comers like Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, and James Caan, who were developing their craft on stage and sharing apartments before getting their respective breaks in film. Duvall was intensely proud of his work, particularly in many Westerns (including opposite John Wayne in 1969's "True Grit"), claiming that his performance in the four-part 1989 mini-series "Lonesome Dove" was his best. "The Western is our genre in the United States of America," Duvall told USA Today. "The English have Shakespeare, the French have Molière, the Russians have Chekhov, but we have the Western."

Very few actors could have done what Duvall did in "Days Of Thunder," delivering perfectly sincere line readings acting opposite a roll cage on a chassis table. Without that level of seriousness added to the film, it would have been nothing but a joke. Instead, the movie has become one of the most iconic racing pictures of its era, perhaps of all time. Even today, 36 years on from its release, the nostalgia for "Days" rages on, with a sequel coming down the pike. While Cruise gave the movie its star power, support from a steady old hand like Duvalls kept it on the rails.  

Great talents like his will be missed in modern Hollywood. He was often typecast as the stoic and hard-edged quiet type, but he had plenty of gusto in there, too.