Shelley Duvall, the fearless, Texas-born movie star whose pale, striking presence was a mainstay in Robert Altman's films and co-starred in Stanley Kubrick's “The Shining,” has died. It was 75.
Duvall died Thursday in her sleep at her home in Blanco, Texas, her longtime partner, Dan Gilroy, announced. The cause was complications from diabetes, said her friend, the journalist Gary Springer.
“My beloved, sweet, wonderful life, partner and friend left us last night,” Gilroy said in a statement. “She has been suffering a lot lately, now she is free. Fly away beautiful Shelley.”
Duvall was attending college in Texas when members of Altman's crew, preparing to film “Brewster McCloud,” met her at a party in Houston in 1970. They introduced the 20-year-old to the director, who cast her in ” Brewster McCloud” and made her his protégé.
Duvall would go on to appear in Altman films, including Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Popeye, Three Women, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
“It gives me good roles,” Duvall said The New York Times in 1977. “None of them were alike. He trusts me a lot, with trust and respect, and he doesn't put restrictions on me or bully me, and I love him. I remember the first piece of advice he gave me: “Don't take yourself too seriously.”
Duvall, diminutive and unassuming, was not a conventional Hollywood starlet. But he had a deceptively sincere manner and exuded a unique naturalism. Film critic Pauline Kael called her a “female Buster Keaton”.
At her peak, Duvall was a regular star in some of the defining films of the 1970s. In “The Shining” (1980), she played Wendy Torrance, who watches in horror as her husband, Jack (Jack Nicholson), going crazy while their family is isolated at the Overlook Hotel. It was Duval's screaming face that made up half of the film's most iconic image, along with Jack's ax coming through the door.
Kubrick, a noted perfectionist, was notoriously hard on Duvall in making “The Shining.” His methods of pushing her through the countless takes in the most agonizing scenes influenced the actor. One scene reportedly took 127 takes. The entire shoot took 13 months. Duvall, in a 1981 interview with People magazine, said she cried “12 hours a day for weeks on end” during the film's production.
“I'll never give that much again,” Duvall said. “If you want to hurt and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.”
Duvall disappeared from the movies almost as quickly as she arrived in them. By the 1990s, she began to retire from acting and withdrew from public life.
“How would you feel if people were really nice and then, suddenly, on a dime, they turned on you?” Duvall said Times earlier this year. “You'd never believe it unless it happened to you. That's why you're hurt, because you can't believe it's true.”
Duvall, the oldest of four, was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 7, 1949. Her father, Robert, was a cattle auctioneer before working as a lawyer, and her mother, Bobbie, was a real estate agent.
Duvall married artist Bernard Sampson in 1970. They divorced four years later. Duvall was in a long-term relationship with musician Paul Simon in the late 70s after they met while filming Woody Allen's Annie Hall. (Duvall played the rock critic who keeps declaring things “too much”.) She also dated Ringo Starr. While filming the 1990 Disney Channel movie Mother Goose Rock 'n' Roll, Duvall met musician Dan Gilroy of the band Breakfast Club, with whom she remained until her death.
Duvall's career in the 1970s was extremely flexible. In the robust western “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1971), she played the post office bride Ida. They were a groupie in 'Nashville' (1975) and Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams in 'Popeye' (1980). In “3 Women,” co-starring Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule, Duvall played Millie Lammoreaux, a spa worker in Palm Springs, and won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival.
In the 1980s, Duvall produced and produced a number of children's television series, including “Faerie Tale Theatre,” “Tall Tales & Legends,” and “Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories.”
Duvall returned to Texas in the mid-1990s. Around 2002, after making the comedy Manna from Heaven, he retired from Hollywood altogether. His whereabouts became a favorite topic of Internet sleuths. A favorite but incorrect theory was that it was residual trauma from the grueling filming of “The Shining.” Another was that the damage to her home after the 1994 Northridge earthquake was the last straw.
For those living in the Texas Hill Country, where Duvall lived for some 30 years, she was neither “hidden” nor secluded. But her circumstances were a mystery to both the media and many of her old Hollywood friends. That changed in 2016, when producers for “Dr. The Phil' show tracked her down and aired a controversial hour-long interview with her in which she opened up about her mental health issues. “I'm very sick. I need help,” Duvall told the program, which was widely criticized as exploitative.
“I learned the kind of person he is the hard way,” Duvall said The Hollywood Reporter in 2021.
THR Journalist Seth Abramovich wrote at the time that he went on a pilgrimage to find her because “it didn't feel right that McGraw's insensitive sideshow was the final word on her legacy.”
Duvall tried to jumpstart her career by dipping her toes into indie horror “The Forest Hills,” which was shot in 2022 and quietly premiered in early 2023.
“Acting again — it's so much fun,” Duvall said People at that time. “It enriches your life.”
This story was originally published by the Associated Press.
