It says an awful lot about an actor's contribution to a franchise that when he no longer appears in its movies, it leaves a gaping hole.
But that is exactly what happened when Robert Duvall did not reprise the role of consigliere, Tom Hagen in Francis Coppola's 'The Godfather, Part III' in 1990.
The reason he did not reappear was down to his salary - he was offered four times less than Al Pacino's.
And while he was not looking for pay parity with Pacino but something recognising his importance to the story, Hagen was instead written out of the saga and was replaced by George Hamilton's character BJ Harrison.
Audiences and critics agreed that was a mistake.
Even when Coppola recut the film with the 2020 director's cut 'Godfather Part III: Coda - The Death of Michael Corleone,' while it attracted more favourable reviews than the original, Duvall's absence continued to haunt it.
In a largely favourable review of the new version, Chicago Sun Times critic Richard Roeper couldn't resist pointing out: "Every time George Hamilton appears onscreen, we can't help but miss the great Robert Duvall."
It should come as no surprise to anyone who followed Duvall's career that his absence from 'The Godfather Part III' was so deeply felt.
A natural and very intelligent actor, he was held in the highest regard by his peers.
Each performance was rooted in a firm pursuit of and dedication to the truth.
There was no exaggeration, no unnecessary histrionics, just raw honesty.
Born in San Diego in 1931, his mother Mildred was an amateur actress and father William was a US Navy Rear Admiral.
Raised in the Christian Science religious faith, his formative years were spent in Annapolis in Maryland where the US Naval Academy is based and described himself later in interviews as a "Naval brat".
He went to the Severn School in Severna Park in Maryland and The Principia, a Christian Science school in St Louis as well as a Principia College in Elsah, Illinois where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama.
Duvall's father had wanted him to attend the Naval Academy but he defied him because "I was terrible at everything but acting - I could barely get through school."
He went to New York and secured his professional acting debut at the Gateway Playhouse, an Equity summer theatre in Long Island - playing the Pilot in 'Laughter in the Stars' which was an adaptation of 'The Little Prince'.
Against his father's wishes, he also served in the US Army in 1953 and 1954 after the Korean War, leaving as a Private First Class and was often quick to dismiss assumptions that he fought in Korea, explaining he barely passed his M-1 rifle basic training.
While based at Camp Gordon in Georgia, Duvall continued to act - taking part in an amateur production in Atlanta of Allen Boretz and John Murray's 1937 play 'Room Service' which had been made famous by the 1938 Marx Marx Brothers movie.
In 1955, he returned to New York to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, benefitting from the GI Bill.
Its alumni would go on to include his co-star from 'The Godfather' Diane Keaton, Gregory Peck, Mary Steenburgen, Steve McQueen Allison Janney, Eli Wallach, Jeff Goldblum, Illeana Douglas, Griffin Dunne, June Carter Cash, Dabney Coleman, Sally Jesse Raphael, Leslie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd, Joanne Woodward, Sydney Pollack and Kim Basinger.
Studying under Sanford Meisner, his classmates included Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and another co-star from'The Godfather,' James Caan.
While studying there, he worked as an office clerk in Manhattan and forged a particularly close friendship with Hackman and Hoffman that would endure throughout their stellar careers.
Duvall even shared a flat with Hoffman in 1955 and later with Hackman as he secured an income in various jobs including as a delivery driver and as mailroom clerk in Macy's department store.
He returned to the stage of the Gateway Theatre in its 1955 season, acquiring experience in a range of plays from Ronald Alexander's 'Time Out for Ginger' to William Inge's 'Picnic' to Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible'.
Audiences took to Duvall as he performed Agatha Christie, Frederick Knott, Jean Anouilh and John Van Druten plays during the 1956 and 1957 seasons and Eddie Carbone in a production of Arthur Miller's 'A View from the Bridge' which was directed by the Belgian-born Ulu Grosbard who would later go on to make the movie 'True Confessions' with him in 1981.
Miller attended one of Duvall's performances as Carbone and that helped open more doors professionally.
Duvall gained more experience of stagecraft outside of New York at the Augusta Civic Theatre, the McLean Theatre in Virginia and Washington DC's Arena Theatre and also through working with Alvin Epstein, a member of the mime artist Marcel Marceau's company.
At the Gateway, he racked up more experience in Horton Foote, Tennessee Williams, Peter Ustinov and Kyle Crichton plays and was cast by Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in a production of Williams' 'Camino Real' and as Harvey Weems in Foote's one-act play 'The Midnight Caller'.
His off-Broadway debut came in 1958 in the role of Frank Gardner in George Bernard Shaw's 'Mrs Warren's Profession.'
And within a year, he was making his small screen debut on CBS's Armstrong Circle Theatre in an episode called 'Jailbreak'.
By 1961, Duvall was a firm fixture on TV dramas - appearing at different stages in three episodes of CBS's legal drama 'The Defenders' and its crime drama 'Route 66' and on NBC's live performance 'Great Ghost Tales,' its crime drama 'Cain's Hundred,' the syndicated cop show 'Shannon' with George Nader.
He also made an impression with appearances in four episodes of ABC's 'Naked City' with Paul Burke.
Duvall's first movie role was a spectacular one, playing Boo Radley opposite Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in Robert Mulligan's Oscar winning 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird.'
He still cut his teeth though as a screen performer with roles in a range of popular TV shows during the 1960s including NBC's 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,' its western series 'The Virginian,' 'Kraft Suspense Theatre' and 'Run for Your Life,' ABC's 'The Untouchables,' 'The Fugitive,' 'The FBI',' 'The Mod Squad' and 'The Outer Limits,' CBS's 'The Wild, Wild West' and 'CBS Playhouse'.
There would be supporting movie roles too as an Army captain in David Miller's 1964 Second World War medics comedy drama 'Captain Newman, M.D.' with Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson and Bobby Darin and as a motorcyclist in Marc Lawrence's 1965 thriller 'Nightmare in the Sun' with Ursula Andress, John Derek and Aldo Ray.
He was cast as one of the angry townsfolk in Arthur Penn's gripping 1966 Texan fugitive drama 'The Chase' with Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Angie Dickinson and Edward Fox and two years later was a colleague of Frank Sinatra's in Gordon Douglas' well received neo-noir 'The Detective' with Lee Remick, Jacqueline Bisset and Jack Klugman which also featured the boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson in a minor role.
Duvall would work with the maverick director Robert Altman for the first time on the critically derided 1968 science fiction movie 'Countdown' with James Caan, Joanna Moore and Michael Murphy, playing an astronaut commander.
In Peter Yates' 1968 box office smash hit thriller 'Bullitt' with Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn, he was a cab driver.
There was another eye catching role as the outlaw Lucky Ned Pepper in another hit movie, Henry Hathaway's 1969 Western 'True Grit' with John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby and Dennis Hopper.
During a retrospective of his career during the 2016 Washington West Film Festival in Virginia, Duvall spoke warmly of the experience of working with Gregory Peck on big movies and also John Wayne.
He recalled of 'True Grit': "The director and I didn't get along - I don't get along with a lot of directors but I do okay - but John Wayne was great working with.
"He was a good man and a very good natural actor - a lot better than a lot of people gave him credit for.
"He was an institution unto himself and that final film he did 'The Shootist,' it was wonderful what he did. So, he was a good guy to work with, absolutely."
While shooting 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' he met Barbara Benjamin, a dancer with two daughters from a previous marriage on 'The Jackie Gleason Show,' who he married in 1964.
The marriage ended, however, in 1975.
Duvall would remarry three times - Gail Youngs in 1982 which made him a brother-in-law of 'The Deer Hunter' actor Jon Savage for four years, the dancer Sharon Brophy from 1991 to 1995 and in 2005 Luciana Pedraza, a granddaughter of the Argentine aviation pioneer Susana Ferrari Billinghurst.
His first collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola came in 1969, playing a lonely highway patrolman in the highly regarded but commercially disappointing drama 'The Rain People' with Shirley Knight and James Caan.
George Lucas, who he would later work with, was an assistant to Coppola on the film which won a Golden Shell for Best Picture at the 1969 San Sebastian Film Festival.
The 1970s would see Duvall cement his status as one of Hollywood's consistently strong character actors.
It began with an excellent comic performance as the upright Army medic Frank Burns in Robert Altman's irreverent 1970 Korean War comedy 'MASH' with Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt and Sally Kellerman.
A critical and commercial hit, it won the Grand Prix at Cannes - the precursor to the Palme d'Or, - landed five Oscar nominations and was the third highest grossing movie of the year.
There was a striking role as an activist in Paul Williams' 1970 student political drama 'The Revolutionary' with Jon Voight and Seymour Cassel.
A year later, George Lucas directed him in the lead role in 'THX 1138' with Donald Pleasance - a cult sci-fi film in which he played a factory worker manufacturing android police officers in a dystopian society that forbids sexual relations who ends up falling foul of the authorities.
Lucas' film was critically acclaimed but was a commercial failure but has grown in stature over the years.
The brash English director Michael Winner directed Duvall in the supporting role of a hired ranch hand involved with others in the murder of an old man in the 1971 revisionist Western, 'Lawman' with Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Lee J Cobb - a film which got a mixed to negative critical reception.
However, the following year he would land his first ever Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actor in a Francis Coppola classic.
As the consigliere Tom Hagen in Coppola's Mafia drama 'The Godfather,' Duvall played an outsider - an adopted son to Marlon Brando's Don Corleone and a loyal lieutenant.
Among a cast that included Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Talia Shire, John Cazale, Richard Castellano, Richard Conte and Sterling Hayden, he more than held his own in the biggest grossing film of 1972 - a Best Picture movie that continues to be feted to this day.
He reprised the role in Coppola's critically acclaimed 1974 Oscar laden sequel 'The Godfather Part II' which added Robert de Niro, Michael V Gazzo and Lee Strasberg to the cast but, in a crowded field, he missed out on another Supporting Actor nomination despite the positive reception for his performance.
Before that, he played Jesse James in Philip Kaufman's 1972 Western 'The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid' with Cliff Robertson, Joseph Anthony's William Faulkner short story adaptation 'Tomorrow' and as a villainous landlord in John Sturges' revisionist Western 'Joe Kidd' with Clint Eastwood which drew mixed reviews.
In John Flynn's 1973 neo-noir 'The Outfit', Duvall was an ex-con on a trail of vengeance alongside Karen Black, Joanna Cassidy, Joe Don Baker and Robert Ryan in a film that sailed under the box office radar despite good reviews.
Howard W Koch's 'Badge 373' with Verna Bloom and Henry Darrow in which he played a racist Irish New York cop landed Duvall in controversy, with Puerto Rican leaders picketing screenings in 1973 amid a critical and commercial backlash.
Another crime film, Tom Gries' 'Lady Ice' with Donald Sutherland, Jennifer O'Neill and Patrick Magee saw him play a Department of Justice official but it was met with audience and critical indifference.
There was a brief cameo in Coppola's excellent 1974 surveillance thriller 'The Conversation' with Gene Hackman, Teri Garr, John Cazale and Frederic Forrest.
Sam Peckinpah directed him and James Caan in the 1975 mercenary action adventure 'The Killer Elite' which divided critics and he joined Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, John Huston and Randy Quaid in Tom Gries' box office hit 'Breakout' in which he played a man framed for a crime and imprisoned who is the focus of a daring jailbreak.
John Sturges' directed him again in the Second World War thriller 'The Eagle Has Landed' with Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Donald Pleasance, Larry Hagman, Jean Marsh and Jenny Agutter, in which he played a Nazi Colonel asked to mastermind the kidnapping of Winston Churchill in a Norfolk village.
Adapted from a Jack Higgins' novel, it was a big commercial and critical success and remains a regular and popular draw on British television schedules.
There were critical bouquets too for Herbert Ross's 1976 Oscar nominated mystery film 'The Seven Per Cent Solution' with Alan Arkin, Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave and Joel Grey which saw him play Dr Watson to Nicol Williamson's cocaine addicted Sherlock Holmes.
Sidney Lumet's prescient television industry satire 'Network' with Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Ned Beatty scooped Oscars, with Duvall catching the eye as a TV executive.
He was back working for Tom Gries in 1977 and alongside Muhammad Ali, Ernest Borgnine and James Earl Jones in 'The Greatest,' a well received biopic of the boxer.
Duvall made his directorial debut in 1977 with a documentary 'We're Not The Jet Set' which was about a ranching family.
He appeared as a priest on a swing in a memorable cameo in Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright and Jeff Goldblum which was a big critical and commercial success.
Duvall was the head of a motor company in Daniel Petrie's critically slated, soapy 1978 movie 'The Betsy' with Tommy Lee Jones, Katharine Ross, Lesley-Anne Down, Kathleen Beller and Laurence Olivier.
However he was to pick up a second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor with an iconic cameo as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in Francis Coppola's Vietnam War epic 'Apocalypse Now' with Martin Sheen, Dennis Hopper, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Laurence Fishburne, Sam Bottoms and Marlon Brando.
As Kilgore, he would get to deliver the film's most quoted line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," penned by John Millius in a movie that has continued to grow in stature over the years and whose troubled production history still fascinates new generations of filmgoers.
It would land him a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.
In 1979, he returned to the small screen to play Dwight D Eisenhower in the ABC miniseries 'Ike' which charted the former President's life as a World War II General and his extramarital affair with Kay Summersby.
With Lee Remick, Dana Andrews and Ian Richardson in the cast, it proved popular with audiences.
His final movie role that year was as a volatile military father in Lewis John Carlino's 'The Great Santini' with Blythe Danner and Michael O'Keefe, which was well received and earned him his first Best Actor nomination at the Oscars.
Now firmly established as an actor, he shared lead billing with Robert de Niro in Ulu Grosbard's Catholic Church corruption tale 'True Confessions' with Burgess Meredith, Ed Flanders, Charles Durning and Cyril Cusack, as the detective brother of a highly regarded priest.
A minor hit, it got a mostly positive response from critics.
The Canadian filmmaker Roger Spottiswoode directed him and Treat Williams in the critical and commercially battered 1981 action comedy 'The Pursuit of DB Cooper' which saw him play an insurance investigator.
Two years later, though, Duvall would scoop his only Academy Award in the Best Actor category for his depiction of a country music singer recovering from alcoholism in Bruce Beresford's very well received 1983 movie 'Tender Mercies' with Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Ellen Barkin and Wilford Brimley.
Duvall insisted on performing the songs and was able to allay the producers' concerns about his ability to do so by producing a demo tape singing Bob Ferguson's 'On A Wings of A Dove' acapella style.
Several country singers including Willie Nelson, George Jones and Merle Haggard inspired his performance and Waylon Jennings was effusive in his praise of Duvall's singing.
Duvall's fellow Best Actor Oscar nominees were all English - Michael Caine, Tom Conti, Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney - and he ruffled feathers in Britain when in the build-up to the ceremony he complained about Hollywood's "Limey syndrome" which tended to view work done on the other side of the Atlantic more favourably.
In the end, he also landed a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama and several other awards and after receiving his Oscar from Dolly Parton he remarked it was nice being "the hometown favourite".
In 1983, Duvall appeared as a publicist in the HBO biographical film 'The Terry Fox Story' about a Canadian amputee and runner.
Eric Fryer played Fox in the film directed by Ralph L Thomas which was released in cinemas in other territories and picked up six Genie Award nominations despite indifferent reviews outside Canada.
Duvall made his feature film directorial debut with the New York street kids story 'Angelo, My Love' which took five years to make and was screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
Very much inspired by the realist ethic of the English director Ken Loach, whose film 'Kes' he hugely admired, Duvall cast the lead after spying him quarreling on the street with an older woman in Columbus Avenue in Manhattan.
The film was warmly welcomed despite failing to secure widespread distribution.
There were decent reviews for his 1984 relationship drama 'The Stone Boy' directed by Christopher Cain with Glenn Close, Frederic Forrest and Wilford Brimley about a family coping with a hunting tragedy.
In Barry Levinson's hit baseball drama 'The Natural' with Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Barbara Hershey, Robert Prosky and Wilford Brimley, he played a sportswriter in a movie that was enthusiastically received by most critics.
Duvall appeared as a mercenary in a 1986 action adventure 'Let's Get Harry' with Mark Harmon, Gary Busey and Rick Rossovich, which was disowned by its director Stuart Rosenberg and died pretty quickly on general release.
There was an appearance as a Preacher in Glen Pitrie's 19th Century Louisiana drama 'Belizaire the Cajun' with Armand Assante, Gail Youngs and Stephen McHattie and as a criminal who tries to seize control of a ship in Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski's maritime thriller 'The Lightship' with Klaus Maria Brandauer.
He landed a role in a largely ignored 1987 Italian movie 'Hotel Colonial' directed by Cinzia Torrini with Jon Savage, Rachel Ward, Massimo Troisi and Anna Galiena.
However his performance as an LA beat cop alongside Sean Penn's rookie in Dennis Hooper's gritty gangland drama 'Colors' earned him a lot of praise in a movie that performed well in cinemas.
The CBS Western miniseries 'Lonesome Dove' saw Duvall take on the role in 1989 of former Texas Ranger, Captain Gus Macrae alongside Danny Glover, Angelica Huston, Tommy Lee Jones and Diane Lane.
Adapted for the small screen from Larry McMurty's novel by Peter Bogdanovich for director Simon Wincer, the six hour epic scooped several Emmys and bagged nominations for its four stars including Duvall who was shortlisted for Best Actor.
1990 saw Duvall begin the new decade with an appearance in Bruno Barrett's 'A Show of Force' with Amy Irving, Andy Garcia, Lou Diamond Phillips and Kevin Spacey which dramatised the real life story death of two student activists in Puerto Rico.
Tony Scott directed him, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes and Michael Rooker in the big budget NASCAR adventure 'Days of Heaven' which roared to box office success despite dividing critics
He played The Commander in German director Volker Schlondorf's film adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' with Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth McGovern and Victoria Tennant which boasted a Harold Pinter screenplay.
Critics, however, blasted the film which stuttered at the box office.
In Martha Coolidge's 1991 Great Depression drama 'Rambling Rose,' he played the Master of the house in a family Laura Dern's servant goes to work for in a well received movie featuring Diane Ladd, Lukas Haas and John Heard.
Haas also co-starred with him and James Earl Jones in Peter Masterson's prison sugar plantation drama 'Convicts'.
Duvall played the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Ivan Passer's 1992 HBO biopic with Julia Ormond, Joan Plowright and Jeroen Krabbe which would earn him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Film or Miniseries and another Emmy nomination.
He joined Christian Bale, Bill Pullman, Max Cassella and Ann-Margret in Kenny Ortega's Disney musical 'Newsies' about the 1899 newspaper boys' strike in New York, playing the publisher Joseph Pulitzer in a tale that failed to resonate with critics or audiences.
Luis Puenzo directed him, William Hurt, Sandrine Bonnaire, Victoria Tennant and Raul Julia in 'The Plague' - an adaptation of the 1947 Albert Camus novel.
In 1993, Duvall turned in one of his most appealing performances as a LA detective trying to track down and reason with Michael Douglas' disturbed, separated, unemployed defence industry worker D-Fens in Joel Schumacher's prophetic 'Falling Down' - a huge hit with critics and audiences and one of the first Hollywood films to tackle the culture of rage among disillusioned white American men.
In Randa Haines' charming friendship drama 'Wrestling Ernest Hemingway,' with Sandra Bullock, Shirley MacLaine and Piper Laurie, Duvall was a Cuban barber who hangs out with Richard Harris' salty old Irish sailor in Florida.
He played the Apache Wars Chief of Scouts, Al Sieber in Walter Hill's 'Geronimo: An American Legend' with Wes Studi, Gene Hackman, Jason Patric and Matt Damon which did not really woo audiences and divided critics.
Duvall was the editor in chief in Ron Howard's lively 1994 newspaper drama 'The Paper' with Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Glenn Close, Randy Quaid and Jason Robards which did reasonably well in cinemas after securing decent notices.
He played Julia Roberts' father in Lasse Hallstrom's underwhelming 1995 romcom 'Something to Talk About' with Dennis Quaid, Kyra Sedgwick and Gena Rowlands and was a down on his luck oil prospector in James Leach's drama 'The Stars Fell On Henrietta' with Aidan Quinn, Frances Fisher, Brian Dennehy and Billy Bob Thornton which drew mixed reviews, although universal praise for his performance.
Roland Joffe's adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's literary classic 'The Scarlet Letter' saw him play Demi Moore's missing husband in the critically lambasted Puritan drama with Gary Oldman, Robert Prosky and Joan Plowright.
In TNT's 1995 TV film 'The Man Who Captured Richman,' Duvall got to portray the Nazi war criminal among a cast that included Arliss Howard and Jeffrey Tambor.
Billy Bob Thornton cast him as his father in the acclaimed and very dark 1996 Arkansas drama 'Sling Blade' about a man adjusting to life outside a mental institution where he was imprisoned for killing his mother and her lover.
There was an appearance as a small town doctor in Jon Turteltaub's hit fantasy drama 'Phenonemon' about a man with telekinetic powers starring John Travolta, Forest Whittaker and Kyra Sedgwick.
The following year, he made his second feature as a director and starred in 'The Apostle' about a wayward Pentecostal preacher with Farrah Fawcett, Miranda Richardson, Billy Bob Thornton and Walton Goggins.
He had written the script in the 1989s but had struggled to find a studio or director to commit to the enthusiastically received film that ended up landing him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
Robert Altman worked with him again on his troubled 1998 adaptation of John Grisham's thriller 'The Gingerbread Man' with Kenneth Branagh, Embeth Davidtz, Famke Janssen, Daryl Hannah, Tom Berenger and Robert Downey Jr which fell foul of studio chiefs during poor test screenings but earned mostly decent reviews.
That year, he played a corporate attorney in Steven Zallian's excellent legal drama 'A Civil Action' with John Travolta, William H Macy, Tony Shslhoub, Kathleen Quinlan, John Lithgow, James Gandolfini, Sydney Pollack and Stephen Fry.
His performance earned him another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and he captured the Screen Actors Guild award for his performance.
He was a veteran astronaut summoned back to action in Mimi Leder's 1998 hit apocalyptic disaster movie 'Deep Impact' with Tea Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, James Cromwell and Jon Favreau.
Dominic Sena's year 2000 box office success 'Gone in Sixty Seconds' with Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Riblisi, Delroy Lindo, Vinnie Jones and Christopher Eccleston saw Duvall as a member of a gang tasked with stealing 50 cars in 72 hours in a film that preceded the 'Fast and the Furious' franchise.
In Roger Spottiswoode's sci-fi action tale 'The Sixth Day,' he was a scientist in charge of cloning opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Rappaport, Michael Rooker, Tony Goldwyn and Terry Crews in a movie that barely made a profit and which was believed to have squandered a decent premise.
Nick Cassavetes directed him in the role of a police negotiator in the didactic Denzel Washington led health insurance hostage drama 'John Q' with Kimberly Elise, Ray Liotta, Anne Heche and James Woods.
He starred alongside Glasgow Rangers legend Ally McCoist, Michael Keaton and Brian Cox in Michael Corrente's Scottish soccer underdogs drama 'A Shot at Glory' (known in some territories as 'The Cup')
The film, whose plot could have been ripped from a football comic, drew poor reviews but has achieved cult status in Scotland - not least for McCoist's lead performance and Duvall's dodgy Highlands accent.
Speaking on a 20th anniversary YouTube event marking the film, Duvall admitted in 2020: "I had to work on the accent because it's like a foreign language.
"It's a little bit of German, a little bit of Scandanavian, a little bit of everything else.
"We had a great time in Scotland. The people were terrific. My wife is from Argentina and she didn't know what to expect but she loved it over there."
In 2001, Duvall and his wife Luciana Pedraza established the Robert Duvall Children's Fund to help families in Northern Argentina through the renovation of homes, schools and medical centres.
The couple also actively supported a not for profit charity helping the poorest women on Latin America, with most of their work focused on Pedraza's home region of the Argentinian Northwest.
That year, he was invited to attend President George W Bush's inauguration, reflecting political views that bordered on the Republican Party and the Libertarian movement.
At various stages, he endorsed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's unsuccessful bid to lead the GOP's White House ticket in 2007 and was deeply involved in the following year's Republican National Convention.
In the subsequent campaign, he joined John McCain and Sarah Palin at a rally in New Mexico.
Four years later, he endorsed Mitt Romney's bid to become President.
However by 2014, Duvall was describing himself as an independent and believed the Republican Party had become a mess.
Luciana Pedraza had a starring role in Duvall's third film as a director, the 2002 Argentinian crime thriller 'Assasination Tango' in which he played a hitman who travels to Buenos Aires and falls for the famous dance.
The film, which also starred Ruben Blades, Kathy Baker and Michael Corrente, was blasted by some critics who accused it of being self-indulgent.
Related to the Confederate General Robert E Lee, Duvall got the chance to play him in Ronald F Maxwell's critically derided 2003 Civil War epic 'Of Gods and Monsters' with Jeff Daniels, Stephen Lang, Mira Sorvino, C Thomas Howell and Frankie Faison.
He did manage to score a hit with Michael Caine, Haley Joel Osment and Kyra Sedgwick in the Tim McCanlies' comedy drama 'Secondhand Lions' in which he and the English actor played eccentric uncles on a Texan farm.
Kevin Costner made full use of Duvall's experience as a Western actor, directing and co-starring with him in the terrific 'Open Range' with Michael Gambon, Annette Bening, Michael Jeter and Diego Luna, whose traditional approach to the genre appealed to audiences and to critics who felt it was his best performance for some years.
He returned to another soccer story in Jesse Dylan's mediocre 2005 comedy 'Kicking and Screaming,' a modest box office hit with Will Ferrell, Kate Walsh and Josh Hutcherson about a father and son's intense little league rivalry.
Jason Reitman directed him in the acclaimed cigarette industry and political lobbying satire 'Thank You For Not Smoking' with Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Sam Elliott, Katie Holmes, William H Macy and Rob Lowe where he played the founder of the deeply dishonest Academy of Tobacco Studies.
In Curtis Hanson's 2007 gambling drama 'Lucky You,' he was a twice World Poker Champion and father to Eric Bana's player in a story that failed to ignite the imagination of audiences or critics despite having Drew Barrymore, Robert Downey Jr, Debra Messing and Michael Shannon in the cast.
There was a much better performance as a deputy chief commissioner in the NYPD in James Gray's critically applauded, old fashioned 2007 crime drama 'We Own The Night' with Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Whalberg and Eva Mendes.
Duvall returned to the Western for TV once more with Walter Hill's 2008 AMC film 'Broken Trail' which found him starring alongside Thomas Haden Church, Greta Scaachi and Chris Mulkey.
Hugely acclaimed, it earned him Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Actor in a Television Film or Miniseries.
Duvall joined Vince Vaughn, Reece Witherspoon, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Favreau, Kristin Chenonweth, Dwight Yoakam and Tim McGraw in Seth Gordon's 2008 Festive comedy hit 'Four Christmases'.
Described by The Hollywood Reporter as "one of the most joyless Christmas films ever," he played Vaughn's divorced father but it still made twice its $80 million budget back at the box office.
In a nod to his Oscar winning role in 'Tender Mercies',' Duvall co-produced and appeared as a friend who helps Jeff Bridges' country singer-songwriter battle the booze in Scott Cooper's 2009 drama 'Crazy Heart' with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Colin Farrell.
Bridges' subsequent Best Actor victory at the Academy Awards for his performance as Otis 'Bad' Blake was a perfect piece of symmetry.
As in 'Tender Mercies', Duvall also got to perform on the Grammy award winning soundtrack, singing Billy Joe and Eddy Shaver's 'Live Forever'.
He turned up as an old man in Australian director John Hillicoat's powerful 2009 movie version of Cormac McCarthy's apocalyptic survival story 'The Road' with Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce.
There was a terrific role too as a Tennessee hermit who throws a funeral for himself while alive in Aaron Schneider's warmly received, quirky arthouse comedy 'Get Low' with Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Scott Cooper and Gerard McRaney, with many reviewers raving about his lead performance.
The same could not be said for the bland Matt Russell Christian golf drama 'Seven Days In Utopia' in 2011 with Melissa Leo and Lucas Black which Roger Ebert slated, saying he would rather eat a golf ball than watch it again.
The following year, Billy Bob Thornton directed and co-starred with him again in the drama 'Jayne Mansfield's Car' which also included Katherine LaNasa, John Hurt, Kevin Bacon, Frances O'Connor, Ray Stevenson and Robert Patrick among the cast.
A family drama set in Alabama, Duvall received decent reviews along with Hurt as a patriarch and World War I veteran in a movie that was otherwise panned and failed to find an audience.
There was an appearance as General Petrov in Philip Kaufman's 2012 TV movie for HBO 'Hemingway and Gelhorn' which starred Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman and featured David Strathairn, Parker Posey, Peter Coyote and Tony Shalhoub, with some critics describing his cameo as the highlight of the film.
He was reunited with Tom Cruise, playing the part of a former Marine in Christopher McQuarrie's 2012 adaptation of Lee Child's 'Jack Reacher' with Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Jai Courtney, Richard Jenkins and Werner Herzog which was a box office success despite iffy reviews.
Cruise would take the soccer mad Duvall to the Manchester derby between City and United at the Etihad Stadium in 2012 while promoting the film in the UK.
Duvall's next project, Emilio Aragon's 2014 Spanish American road movie Western 'A Night in Old Mexico' with Jeremy Irvine and Angie Cepeda took a hell of a beating from film critics.
However his next role would land him a Hollywood Film Awards gong and a seventh Oscar nomination, getting on the Best Supporting Actor shortlist for his performance as a judge who is Robert Downey Jr's estranged father in David Dobkin'stepidly received but commercially successful legal drama 'The Judge' with Vera Farmiga, Vincent d'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong and Billy Bob Thornton.
Duvall wrote, directed and starred in his next project, the Western 'Wild Horses' with James Franco, Josh Hartnett and his wife Luciana.
Premiered at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, its release was largely confined to video on demand services and it drew terrible reviews.
James Franco directed him in 2016's 'In Dubious Battle' - a film based on a John Steinbeck short story - with Nat Wolff, Vincent d'Onofrio, Selena Gomez, Bryan Cranston and Ed Harris which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and got a limited cinema released where it failed to astound audiences and critics.
The English director Steve McQueen cast him as Colin Farrell's power broker father in his taut 2018 movie adaptation of Lynda La Plante's ITV heist thriller 'Widows' with Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Jackie Weaver and Daniel Kaluuya.
Widely acclaimed, McQueen's film was also an international arthouse hit.
As Duvall entered his nineties, his work ethic meant he had no intention of slowing down.
Ty Roberts directed him in a cameo alongside Martin Sheen, Luke Wilson and Treat Williams in the 2021 American Football drama 'Twelve Mighty Orphans'.
He appeared in Jeremiah Zagar's Netflix basketball film 'Hustle' with Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah and Ben Foster as the owner of the 76ers basketball team which was filmed in October 2022 during the Covid-19 pandemic in Philadelphia.
Duvall also appeared in Scott Cooper's 2022 gothic mystery thriller 'The Pale Blue Eye' with Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson and Toby Jones in which he played where he played an Occult expert.
It would be his last appearance on the big screen and it was a memorable one.
Just like his departure from the third 'Godfather' film, his passing robs cinema of a consummate performer.
Duvall was an actor's screen actor and his unique screen presence.will be sorely missed.
(Robert Duvall passed away at the age of 95 on February 15, 2026)
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