Everybody has weighed in on the great Robert Duvall passing.

My memories of watching him include two scenes I haven’t heard anyone talk about.

In The Great Santini, he and a buddy get loaded and have to report to their military commander the next day.

Duvall’s buddy is a wreck, barely able to stand from being hungover. When the general asks what is wrong with him, Duvall with that clipped serious tone of his says “He has been weakened by the flu.” The General is having none of it of course.

My brothers and I loved it and for years when one of us was a little off after a night of revelry we would always explain “he has been weakened by the flu.”

On cable the week of his death I was flipping around and Deep Impact was on. A movie about a meteor headed toward destroying earth. Duvall is the grizzled commander of the spacecraft sent to stop it. During the effort a young whippersnapper who always gave Duvall a hard tune about being too old to be there, is injured and blinded.

Duvall gently sits down by him back in the spacecraft and says somebody brought Moby Dick on the ship. They start sharing stories about their families, Duvall in a soft hush, gently soothing the now blind man. Finally Duvall pulls up Moby Dick and says “They call me Ishmael” as a he begins reading bringing a smile to the stricken pilots face.

Just a role, not even the lead, in an action movie, and Duvall pulls that scene off like no one else could.

Great actor.