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 wife said Monday.

His death Sunday was confirmed by his wife Luciana Duvall.

“Yesterday we said goodbye to my beloved husband, cherished friend, and one of the greatest actors of our time. 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 decades-long career, he shone in both lead and supporting roles, and eventually became a director.

“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 installments of “The Godfather” and the maniacal Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now.”

The latter, which earned Duvall an Oscar nomination and made him a bona fide star after years playing lesser roles, sees him utter 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.

That character was originally created to be even more over the top — his name was at first supposed to be Colonel Carnage — but Duvall had it toned down, demonstrating his meticulous approach to acting.

“I did my homework,” Duvall told veteran talk show host Larry King in 2015. “I did my research.”

Duvall was sort of a late bloomer in Hollywood — he was already 31 when he delivered his breakout performance as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

He would go on to play myriad roles — a bullying corporate executive in “Network” (1976), a Marine officer who treats his family like soldiers in “The Great Santini” (1979), and then his star turn in “Tender Mercies.”

Duvall often said his favorite role, however, was one he played in a 1989 TV mini-series — the grizzled, wise-cracking Texas Ranger-turned-cowboy Augustus McCrae in “Lonesome Dove,” based on the novel by Larry McMurtry.

Film critic Elaine Mancini once described Duvall as “the most technically proficient, the most versatile, and the most convincing actor on the screen in the United States.”



AFP

Austrian prosecutors have filed terror charges against a 21-year-old over a plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, they said on Monday, which had led the US megastar’s shows in 2024 in the Alpine nation to be scrapped.

Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking “Eras” tour were cancelled in the summer of 2024 after authorities warned of the plot.

The main suspect, who has been in detention since his arrest in August 2024, is facing terror offenses and other charges, prosecutors said.

The Austrian is accused of having been a member of a terror organisation from May 2023 “by planning and preparing a terrorist attack on the concert of singer Taylor Swift,” they said in a statement.

By sharing IS propaganda through various messaging services and other offenses, he participated and “openly aligned himself” with IS, they added.

Planning the attack on the concert, he allegedly tried to get weapons and worked on making a shrapnel bomb “specific to IS attacks” and received instructions from other IS members on handling explosives, according to prosecutors.

He is also alleged to have been involved in other attack plans abroad, including in Dubai and Istanbul, though those attacks never materialised.

If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Last year, a Berlin court convicted a Syrian teenager of contributing to the plot to attack the Swift concert.

The 16-year-old was given an 18-month suspended sentence.

The plot was thwarted with the help of US intelligence.

Swift later wrote on social media that “the reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many had planned on coming to those shows”.

Nigerian media personality Toke Makinwa has explained her decision to stop paying monthly tithes to the church, revealing that she now redirects the money to hospitals, widows, and individuals in urgent need.

In a video posted on her YouTube channel on Saturday, Makinwa made the remarks during the podcast where she said she “kind of stopped paying tithe to the church” after concluding that many churches are already financially comfortable and she would rather channel the money to the needy.

“I kind of stopped paying tithe to the church because all the churches I know are rich. And I decided that no, no, no, no, I ain’t doing this anymore. I would rather go to hospitals, widows’ homes.”

She added that many of the churches are already financially well-established.

“All the churches I know are rich. Every Sunday, there’s a building fund envelope. You guys have so much money, and it’s not taxed. It’s a business, if I’m going to be real, because if that pastor dies today, either his wife or his child becomes the next pastor,” she said, adding that leadership succession in some churches often remains within families.

While clarifying that she still gives offerings and supports church programmes, Makinwa stressed that she no longer pays her regular tithe directly to religious institutions.

“I give an offering in church. And if the church needs anything, I would support the house of God for programmes, anything. But that monthly tithe.”

According to her, she now channels her tithe toward charitable causes, including paying hospital bills and assisting people with urgent financial needs.

“I would rather go to hospitals, take a maternity ward, and pay all the bills there. I would rather when strangers come to meet me, I would tithe my tithe to them because they are telling me their actual needs,” she said.

She questioned the rationale of giving money to churches while people struggle to survive.

“How can I say I love God? I have the money this person is looking for to pay rent, and I’m carrying it to a church?” she asked.

Makinwa also addressed possible criticism, urging people to act according to their convictions.

“Do whatever it is in your conviction to do,” she said, noting that interpretations of biblical teachings on tithing differ.

Reflecting on her past, she revealed that she once gave an entire brand endorsement fee to the church as a tithe.

“Ten years ago, I was the girl who got a brand endorsement deal, didn’t touch one naira double digits, and carried everything to church. I said I will tithe this to God so that my life will never be tight,” she recalled.