‘Air cavalry’ commander John B Stockton was the inspiration behind Duvall’s napalm-sniffing Lt Col Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war epic
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he actor Robert Duvall, who died this week, is known for many memorable movie roles, but none so much as his cameo as the Stetson-wearing Lt Col Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. In Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war epic Duvall plays the commander of a helicopter squadron who flies into battle with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries blaring from loudspeakers and utters the immortal line: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Duvall’s scene-stealing portrayal earned him Bafta and Golden Globe awards for best supporting actor as well as an Oscar nomination in that category. What is less well known is that his character was based on a real officer who fought in Vietnam. Lt Col John B Stockton was hard to miss. Like Duvall in the movie, he wore a black Stetson and spurs on his boots. He carried his papers in leather saddlebags and even had his unit’s mascot, a mule called Maggie, smuggled into Vietnam despite a strict “no pets” policy. And he really did play Wagner from side-mounted speakers fixed to his helicopter when going into action.
Duvall, the son of a rear admiral in the US navy, confirmed in interviews discussing his part in Apocalypse Now that he studied accounts of Stockton and similar characters when preparing to play Kilgore. Stockton’s style choices were not random. In his book Pleiku: The Dawn of Helicopter Warfare in Vietnam, military historian JD Coleman describes him as: “Balding, rawhide-lean, just under six feet tall, [Stockton] had the handlebar moustache of the old time cavalryman. When viewed without his headgear, he looked a lot like a Yul Brynner with facial hair.” Stockton was commander of 1st Squadron, 9th Air Cavalry Regiment and was fixated on the word “cavalry”. To Stockton, the helicopter soldiers of Vietnam were a contemporary embodiment of US cavalry bluecoats from the frontier wars against Native Americans in the 19th century.
