Beaufort mourns loss of Robert Duvall, the ‘Great Santini’ who loved city’s hospitality
Before there was “The Big Chill,” “Prince of Tides” or “Forrest Gump,” there was “The Great Santini.”
The 1979 film brought Hollywood to Beaufort and helped spawn an international film festival, which named one of its biggest awards after the movie.
Robert Duvall, the star of the critically acclaimed film that helped to launch the city’s starring role in so many Hollywood productions died Sunday at his Virginia home. He was 95.
“When we started that long run of movies filmed in Beaufort, ‘The Great Santini’ was the first,” said Ron Tucker of the Beaufort Film Society, which hosts the Beaufort International Film Festival.
“The Big Chill” (1983), “The Prince of Tides (1991) and “Forrest Gump” (1994) were among some 20 films that followed.
Duvall’s death comes as directors from across the world are converging on Beaufort for the film society annual film festival this week.
By the late 1970s, when “The Great Santini was being filmed, Duvall was a known quantity, having appeared in “To Kill a Mockingbird” with Gregory Peck,” “The Godfather” with Marlon Brando and “True Grit” with John Wayne.
But he made an impression with Beaufortonians off camera for just being a nice guy.
“I do know that he was out and about in the community and did meet people and was super friendly,” Tucker said.
Robert Duvall a fan of Beaufort, SC
Duvall was fond of Beaufort and said so at the film’s premier at the old Plaza Twins Theater on Robert Smalls Parkway on Oct. 19, 1979.
“It’s great to be back in the city with the best shrimp in the world, the best hospitality,” Duvall told the crowd.
Duvall’s performance garnered an Academy Award nomination for best actor. Michael O’Keefe was nominated for best supporting actor.
“The Great Santini,” based on the 1976 semi-autobiographical novel by Beaufort author Pat Conroy, is about a young man’s love-hate relationship with his Marine fighter pilot father Lt. Col. Wilbur “Bull” Meechum, known as “The Great Santini” and played by Duvall, who rules the family with an iron fist. O’Keefe played Meechum’s son, Ben, and Blythe Danner was his wife, Lillian.
The backdrop of the film is 1960s Beaufort.
Many of the scenes were filmed at 1853 house known as Tidalholm in The Point neighborhood. The 7,400-square-foot waterfront property at 1 Laurens St. also was used in the movie “The Big Chill.”
‘Uncle Bobby’ played sports with neighborhood kids
In a story published Feb. 16 in Charleston-based Garden & Gun magazine, Beaufort native Hamlin O’Kelley, who grew up in the neighborhood, said the kids came to know Duvall during his time in the city and called him “Uncle Bobby.” Duvall played basketball with them, had time to toss around the football and even joined them trick or treating.
“We all became star-struck when Hollywood arrived in town to film Pat Conroy’s novel The Great Santini,” O’Kelley wrote. “We all knew the Conroys.”
Conroy, who died in 2016, later praised Duvall’s portrayal of the abusive, yet larger-than-life Marine pilot character based on his own father.
A post about Duvall’s death on Conroy’s Facebook page prompted 450 comments, with many recalling interactions they had with Duvall and other actors or their experiences as extras during filming.
“We were lucky to meet Robert Duvall that night,” wrote Rebecca Bradshaw who watched filming at The Point. “It was a thrill! Will never forget it. He was one of the best. RIP.”
“Got to see him work his acting magic when I was an extra on the set of “The Great Santini” in Beaufort SC in 1979,” Blaine Smith said. “He even came over and sat at our table one day during lunch just to talk and hang out with the boys, and tell us how he had recently filmed another movie playing an Army Colonel.... Apocalypse Now!” The guy was just as humble and nice as you would think he would be.”
Duvall was in 1995’s “Something to Talk About” starring Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid, another movie made in Beaufort.
Santini Patriot Award at the Beaufort International Film Festival
The Beaufort International Film Festival introduced the Santini Patriot Award in 2011 in honor of the title character in Pat Conroy novel. The award is given annually to a filmmaker whose work honors American veterans.
In 2010, Danner and O’Keefe returned to Beaufort where they were recognized at the festival, along with Conroy, for their contributions to Lowcountry cinema. In the film, Danner played Lillian Meechum, Bull Meechum’s wife.
But Duvall never returned.
“We are saddened by the loss of the great Robert Duvall, a legendary actor who gave the world so many unforgettable characters including Lt. Col. Bull Meechum in The Great Santini,” Conroy’s Facebook page said. “We send our deepest sympathies to his family and to all who loved him. What a gift that he lives on in the work and that we can return to his performances again and again.”
Though he has made his journey “toward stars and suns, toward galaxies and night,” says the post of Duvall, referring to a well-known passage in Conroy’s book, “his light endures on screen, indelible and eternal.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
