Robert Duvall was more than an actor. He was an anchor. As news of his passing at 95 (on February 15, 2026) circulates, it’s hard not to look back at a career that feels less like a filmography and more like a map of the American cinema over the last 60 plus years. Duvall was the ultimate craftsman. He was the "actor's actor" who managed to be a household name without ever losing the chameleon-like mystery of a character performer. Duvall’s film debut was as Boo Radley in the

In April 1876, "Texas Jack" Omohundro was in the home stretch of a marathon. He and Buffalo Bill Cody were eight months into a grueling dramatic tour that had begun in Philadelphia the previous August. By the time the troupe arrived for their three-night stand in Rochester on April 10th, they had already traversed the Eastern Seaboard, dipped deep into the South through Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama, crossed into Texas, and battled a Northern winter through the Midwest and O

On February 14, 1884, Theodore Roosevelt suffered an unimaginable tragedy, losing both his wife and mother on the same day, in the same house. Theodore Roosevelt 1884 Just two days earlier, his wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, had given birth to their daughter. Theodore, who was at that time a young state assemblyman serving in Albany, was urgently called home to New York City because his mother, Mittie, had fallen gravely ill with typhoid fever. By the time he arrived, ho

In 2000, I boarded a plane for the first time, heading to Los Angeles to meet my friend Amanda and begin our trek following Steely Dan’s Two Against Nature tour. I was a California novice, so she convinced me that Disneyland was a mandatory stop. We eventually made it to the front of the line for the Mad Tea Party, and as we were ushered into our teacup, the next four people in line piled in with us. I sat down, reached for the center dial to spin, and looked up straight into