CNN

By Brian Lowry, CNN

(CNN) — Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor best known for “The Godfather,“ “Apocalypse Now” and many other tough-guy roles over an acclaimed screen career that spanned six decades, has died. He was 95.

Duvall died “peacefully” at his home in Middleburg, Virginia on Sunday, according to a statement sent by his public relations agency on behalf of his wife, Luciana.

Duvall memorably played the Corleone family consigliere, or key adviser, in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” earning his first of seven Academy Award nominations for the 1972 film before reprising the role two years later in “The Godfather Part II.”

Born in San Diego, California – his father was a career naval officer – Duvall played a wide variety of roles, from cowboys to military men.

He attended Principia College in Illinois and served in the army during the Korean War before moving to New York and studying drama under famed acting coach Sanford Meisner. During that period, he shared an apartment with Dustin Hoffman and hung out with Gene Hackman, another young actor who would go on to great success. Hackman died last year.

Duvall appeared in a number of plays before being cast in the film version of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in the small but pivotal of Arthur “Boo” Radley in 1962. (He later named one of his dogs “Boo.”)

An array of film roles followed, among them the bad guy opposite John Wayne in Wayne’s lone Oscar-winning performance, “True Grit”; the part of Major Frank Burns in the Robert Altman movie “M*A*S*H”; and the lead in “Star Wars” director George Lucas’ dystopian 1971 sci-fi directing debut, “THX 1138,” in which Duvall (and everyone else) sported shaved heads.

That came out the year before “The Godfather,” and his role as Corleone family attorney Tom Hagen propelled Duvall into another echelon. The actor worked constantly thereafter, playing a network executive in the satire “Network,” and migrating to television in the blockbuster TV miniseries “Lonesome Dove.”

Duvall won an Oscar for portraying a country singer in the 1983 movie “Tender Mercies,” in which he did his own singing.

He also earned Academy Award nominations for playing a marine at odds with his family in “The Great Santini,” and as Lt. Col. Kilgore in the Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now,” which reunited him with Coppola and featured him delivering the oft-quoted line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Duvall noticeably skipped appearing in the a long-delayed “The Godfather Part III” in 1990, due to a pay dispute with Coppola, telling Bob Costas in 1990 that Al Pacino was going to be paid five times the amount he was offered, which was “totally unacceptable.”

Later, in an interview with Larry King, Duvall called his decision not to appear in the third “Godfather” movie “a matter of principle.”

Roles in other Westerns were also a part of his oeuvre, such as “Open Range” opposit

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By Patrick Snell, CNN

(CNN) — There’s a reason people so often talk about the magic and romance of the Cup, and given recent events, it’s all still very much alive and well.

Dating all the way back to the early 1870s, England’s iconic FA Cup is the oldest national soccer competition in the world.

Traditionally, it pits non-league and lower league teams with the sport’s elite. It’s a chance for potential giant-killers to take down the biggest names from the Premier League, and on January the 10th, we saw just that with sixth-tier Macclesfield shocking FA Cup holder Crystal Palace 2-1 in a result that – as far as league positions are concerned – is now regarded as the biggest upset in tournament history.

Macclesfield, whose team is made up of part-time players, went into that match at tiny Moss Rose – a stadium with a capacity of 5,300 with 2,095 of those seated – 117 places below the Eagles in the English soccer league pyramid, but you simply would simply never have guessed.

“It’s the stuff that’s sort of your wildest dreams, it’s not supposed to happen to people like us, but it did,” Macclesfield defender Sam Heathcote told CNN Sports as he reflected on the result that sent shockwaves across the soccer world and beyond.

When he’s not keeping Premier League defenders at bay, Sam is a PE teacher at a school in Altrincham, just a few miles away from Manchester and his return to work that following Monday is one that he’ll never forget.

“You know, it was a bit surreal, back down to planet Earth straight away, I had some of the younger kids coming out with funny comments like they had the dog waving at me on TV, so there was no time to stay on a high horse or anything like that. It was straight back down to planet Earth for me,” Heathcote said.

“I got all embarrassed and shy and I don’t know why because I spend most of my week with the kids, but, yeah, I didn’t expect it, and it was so nice and it’s something that will definitely live long in my memory,” he added.

Another big challenge

Macclesfield’s next challenge in the FA Cup is a fourth-round clash with yet another Premier League team, Brentford, in a match that will see the Silkmen once again as overwhelming underdogs when they take to the field of play on Monday evening.

“We’ll obviously go into the game with a lot more confidence than we did against Palace. They might be a couple of places above Palace, but we’ve broken the record before, so why can’t we do it again?” club captain and former highway supervisor Paul Dawson told CNN Sports.

Dawson – who now works for a candle-making company – scored the first goal of the match in his club’s history-making win over the Eagles and it’s no surprise he’s still pinching himself in disbelief!

“I’m not going to lie, I can’t really remember it. I’ve watched the highlights about 120 times or something! I don’t remember my celebration, I don’t remember any of it, but yeah, it was a very surreal moment! Honestly, I think I’m still living the dream … I don’t think I’ve come back down to Earth.”

Remembering one of their own

Despite riding the crest of a truly euphoric wave following the historic win over Palace, it’s with collectively heavy hearts that Macclesfield’s players go into their fourth-round tie following the de