LOS ANGELES - Robert Duvall, who played the smooth mafia lawyer in "The Godfather" and stole the show with his depiction of a surfing-crazed colonel in "Apocalypse Now," has died at the age of 95.
His death on Sunday was confirmed by his wife, Luciana Duvall.
"Bob passed away peacefully at home," she wrote.
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. He kept acting in his 90s.
"To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything," Luciana Duvall said. "His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court."
Duvall won his Academy Award in 1983 for playing a washed-up country singer in "Tender Mercies."
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."
"It was an honour to have worked with Robert Duvall," Oscar winner Al Pacino, who acted alongside Duvall in "The Godfather" films, said in a statement.
"He was a born actor as they say, his connection with it, his understanding and his phenomenal gift will always be remembered. I will miss him."
As Colonel Kilgore, Duvall earned an Oscar nomination and became a bona fide star after years playing lesser roles, in a performance where he utters what is now 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.
Cinema giant Francis Ford Coppola -- who directed Duvall in "Apocalypse Now" and "The Godfather" -- called his loss "a blow."
"Such a great actor and such an essential part of American Zoetrope from its beginning," Coppola said in a statement on Instagram.