page_title: Robert Duvall
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Duvall / Personal life
context_page_description: Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and filmmaker whose career spans more than six decades. He has been nominated for seven Academy Awards and seven Golden Globe Awards, and has won a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy Award. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2005.
  Duvall began appearing in theater during the late 1950s, moving into television and film roles during the early 1960s, playing Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird and appearing in Captain Newman, M.D., as Major Frank Burns in the blockbuster comedy MASH and the lead role in THX 1138, as well as Horton Foote's adaptation of William Faulkner's Tomorrow, which was developed at The Actors Studio and is Duvall's personal favorite. This was followed by a series of critically lauded performances in commercially successful films.
  Duvall has starred in numerous films and television series, including The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Bullitt, True Grit, Joe Kidd, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, Network, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini,
  The Natural, Lonesome Dove, The Handmaid's Tale, Days of Thunder, Rambling Rose, Falling Down and Secondhand Lions.
context_section_description: Duvall has been married four times but does not have any children. He met his first wife, Barbara Benjamin, a former dancer on The Jackie Gleason Show, during the shooting of To Kill a Mockingbird. She had two daughters from her first marriage. The couple were married from 1964 until 1975. His second wife was Gail Youngs, to whom he was married from 1982 to 1986. His marriage to Youngs temporarily made him the brother-in-law of John Savage, Robin Young, and Jim Youngs. His third marriage was to Sharon Brophy, a dancer, from 1991 to 1995.
  In 2005, Duvall married his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza, granddaughter of Argentine aviation pioneer Susana Ferrari Billinghurst. He met Pedraza in Argentina, recalling, "The flower shop was closed, so I went to the bakery. If the flower shop had been open, I never would've met her." They were both born on January 5, but Duvall is 41 years older. They have been together since 1997. He produced, directed, and acted with her in Assassination Tango, with the majority of filming in Buenos Aires. Duvall is also known as a very skilled Argentine Tango dancer, having a Tango Studio in Argentina and in the United States.
  Duvall's political views are variously described as libertarian or conservative. He was personally invited to Republican President George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001. In September 2007, he announced his support for Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. Duvall worked the floor at the GOP's 2008 national convention and, according to an August 29, 2008, MSNBC article, Duvall narrated most of the videos for the convention. In September 2008, he appeared onstage at a John McCain–Sarah Palin rally in New Mexico.
  Duvall endorsed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. He revealed during a March 13, 2014, interview with The Daily Beast, however, that he will probably become an independent, calling today's Republican Party "a mess".
  In 2001, Pedraza and Duvall founded the Robert Duvall Children's Fund to assist families in Northern Argentina through renovations of homes, schools, and medical facilities. Duvall and Pedraza have been active supporters of Pro Mujer, a nonprofit charity organization dedicated to helping Latin America's poorest women (with Duvall and Pedraza concentrating on Pedraza's home in the Argentine Northwest).
  In May 2009, Duvall spoke for historic preservation against Walmart's proposal to build a store across the road from the entrance to the Wilderness Battlefield national park in Orange County, Virginia. In 2011, he appeared at the Texas Children's Cancer Center charity event, "An Evening with a Texas Legend", in Houston, where he was interviewed by Bob Schieffer.
caption: Duvall with future wife Luciana Pedraza (right) shaking hands with a member of "The Black Stallions" of Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Four at the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily in June 2003.
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