Robert Duvall worked as a clerk in Manhattan before his big break

Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall, who died Feb. 15 at the age of 95, also had a brief postal career in New York City.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked shifts as a clerk at a Post Office in Manhattan’s Broadway district between taking acting classes and auditioning. His roommate at the time was Dustin Hoffman, and they palled around with fellow actors, the late Gene Hackman and James Caan.

Duvall’s breakout role came in the 1962 movie “To Kill a Mockingbird” as the character Arthur “Boo” Radley. During his acting career, he was nominated seven times for an Oscar and won best actor in 1984 for “Tender Mercies.”

A list of famous former employees is available on the postal history page on usps.com. Employees who know about other famous postal workers can email their tips to the USPS historian’s office.

Postal blue genes

Clifton, AZ, Postmaster Joanna Simmons is fascinated with the postal blue stripe running through her husband’s family tree.

Tyler Simmons is the postmaster of Pima, AZ, and “his dad was the postmaster there before him, and his uncle was a postmaster as well,” she said.

Tyler’s brother, Chad Simmons, is a customer services supervisor in Safford, AZ; his sister, Vicki Rolfson, is a clerk in Central, AZ; and Tyler and Joanna’s children both once worked for USPS, too.

But she is most impressed by a fact Tyler’s uncle discovered while doing genealogical research online: The family is linked to the first postmaster general, Benjamin Franklin. Tyler is Franklin’s first cousin 10 times removed, according to his uncle’s research.

“We even took a trip to Philadelphia and visited his Post Office,” Joanna said. “It was an awesome experience.”

The past is the present

Pamela Reese, a rural carrier in Huntsburg, OH, also has an early American ancestor who worked for the Post Office.

Phillip Beach delivered mail in New York between 1799 and 1800, according to an article her grandmother shared when she started with USPS. “Now that I’ve been here 19 years, it means more to me,” she said.

Reese points out an unusual present-day connection with Beach’s work: “I have about 200 Amish customers,” she said. “He delivered on horse and buggy, and now I deliver to people on horse and buggy.”

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