Shelley Duvall, the saucer-eyed, rail-thin waif who avoided being hacked by a deranged Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and acted in seven films directed by her guru, Robert Altman, passed away on Thursday. She was seventy-five. At her Blanco, Texas, home, Duvall passed away in her sleep from problems related to her diabetes, a representative named Gary Springer told The Hollywood Reporter.
“My sweet, wonderful, and beloved friend and life companion passed away. She has suffered too much lately; she is now free. Her life partner since 1989, Dan Gilroy, exclaimed, “Fly away, beautiful Shelley.” A disheveled Duvall made an appearance on a syndicated talk show called Dr. Phil in November 2016, during which she disclosed that she was mentally ill. “I’m really ill. Help, please,” she uttered.
Shelley Duvall has sadly passed away at the age of 75. pic.twitter.com/boCaeUc577
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) July 11, 2024
Think Entertainment and Children’s Programming
Duvall had a successful career as a versatile, unique actress and head of her own production company, Think Entertainment before she left Hollywood for her home state of Texas in the middle of the 1990s. Think Entertainment produced star-studded, avant-garde children’s programming for cable television that earned her two Emmy Award nominations.
Employees at Altman found Duvall while she was enrolled in junior college in her hometown of Houston and persuaded her to take a screen exam. Subsequently, she made her cinematic debut in Brewster McCloud (1970) as a teenage seductress and Astrodome tour guide Suzanne Davis.
A Career with Robert Altman
Ten years later, Duvall starred in Altman’s live-action Popeye adaption, singing and playing the legendary comic-strip character Olive Oyl—the strong-willed damsel in distress—against Robin Williams.
Between, the innocent star worked with Altman on many films, including McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974), Nashville (1975), Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976), and 3 Women (1977), where she played the fanciful Millie Lamoureaux, a fantasizing attendant at a Palm Springs health spa for the elderly who falls in love with bank robber Keith Carradine from Mississippi.
When The New York Times questioned her in 1977 about why she continued to collaborate with Altman, she responded, “He offers me damn good roles.” They haven’t all been the same.
Personal Struggles and Final Years
Duvall was also a spacy rock journalist in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, appeared as Pansy in funny scenes with Michael Palin in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, and played Steve Martin’s supportive pal Dixie in Roxanne. She returned to acting in 2022 with a role in The Forest Hills. Duvall was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and attended South Texas Junior College. She met Robert Altman’s crew while filming Brewster McCloud and was offered a role in the movie. Duvall’s resume included F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Bernice Bobs Her Hair, Frankenweenie, Changing Habits, Home Fries, Jane Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady, Suburban Commando, and Manna From Heaven.
Duvall recorded Sweet Dreams in 1981 and later created Tall Tales & Legends, a one-hour anthology series for Showtime. She launched Think Entertainment in 1987, which specialized in family entertainment and produced telefilms. Duvall married artist Bernard Sampson during the filming of Brewster McCloud but divorced after four years in 1974.
The Shining and Beyond
Paul Simon, a singer who also made an appearance in the film Annie Hall, was someone she later dated. They met in New York around the time of the film. Up until he left her for her friend Carrie Fisher, they shared a home on Central Park West. (She claimed that as she prepared to board the Concorde to London to begin work on The Shining, he conveyed the news to her, and she sobbed the whole way.)
Before Duvall met singer-drummer Gilroy, a member of the pop group Breakfast Club and former boyfriend of Madonna, he also shared a residence with Stan Wilson, who portrayed Oscar the barber in the television series Popeye. After appearing in the Disney Channel film Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme in 1990, they fell in love.
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