Robert Duvall Tribute – Lonesome Dove, True Grit & a Career Well Lived

[00:00] Signing Off: The Last Segment of a Long Night

Jeff and Jimi were wrapping up two hours and fifteen minutes of live radio when Brent from LA called in for the final segment. Brent is a regular – known for his wordsmithing, his gunslinger attire at live events, and his signs at rallies. He confirmed he will be at the IE Conservative Convention at the end of next month. Jeff mentioned he had appeared on the Morning Answer show with Sheriff Chad Bianca earlier in the week, with the interview running about twelve minutes. The clip is being edited and will be posted to the Gunslinger Radio show page once it’s ready.

[02:59] Robert Duvall: A Tribute to Bobby D

Brent opened the tribute by noting that Robert Duvall – who preferred to be called Bobby D – passed away the previous week. The call turned into a genuine conversation about a sixty-year career that touched nearly every corner of American film.

The consensus starting point was Augustus McCrae in the 1989 Lonesome Dove miniseries. Both Jeff and Brent landed on it independently as the finest Western character Duvall ever played, and possibly the finest in the genre period. Brent’s two favorite lines from the production: “To the sunny slopes of long ago” and “The older the violin, the sweeter the music.” He noted that watching McCrae’s final scenes is not something you get through dry-eyed, no matter how many times you’ve seen it. Jeff agreed and noted the length of the miniseries is the only thing that keeps most people from revisiting it more often. It runs long, but it earns every minute.

Brent made the case for two other films that don’t always lead the Duvall conversation. To Kill a Mockingbird from 1962 – Duvall plays Boo Radley in a small but unforgettable role. Jimi had just rewatched it with his son, who had a book report on the novel, and the whole family sat through it in near silence. Brent’s point about it is worth keeping: it presents itself simply, but it operates on several levels at once, and it holds up more than sixty years on. Gods and Generals from 2003, in which Duvall plays Robert E. Lee, was flagged as underappreciated – a serious historical film that doesn’t get discussed alongside his other work as often as it should.

True Grit came up because Jeff initially blanked on the title. Duvall plays Ned Pepper, the outlaw villain, opposite John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn. The exchange between them – Ned’s “I mean to kill you in one minute” met with Rooster’s “That’s bold talk for a one-eyed fat man” and the charge that follows – is one of the great Western confrontation scenes. And then there is Apocalypse Now, which neither host counts among their personal favorites but which contains one of the most quoted lines in American cinema: Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore declaring that napalm in the morning smells like victory.

The quality that both Jeff and Brent most appreciated, beyond the performances themselves, was that Duvall kept his politics entirely to himself across a career that spanned from 1962 to the present day. He never used the platform. Whatever he believed, it stayed private. In the current environment, that kind of discipline stands out.

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The observations in this post come from a genuine, unscripted conversation between longtime film lovers. Lonesome Dove, True Grit, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gods and Generals, and Apocalypse Now are all widely available for streaming or purchase and worth your time if you haven’t revisited them lately.