Shelley Duvall, the wide-eyed, slender performer who won the Cannes actress prize for Robert Altman’s “3 Women” and endured Stanley Kubrick’s intense directing techniques to star in “The Shining,” died Thursday in Blanco, Texas, of complications from diabetes. Diversity Her partner, Dan Gilroy, confirmed she was 75.
“My sweet, loving, amazing life partner and friend left us last night. She has suffered a lot for some time now, she is free. Fly away beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy said in a statement.
Duvall was best known for working with director Altman, who cast her in “Brewster McCloud” as her first screen role. She appeared in his films “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” and “Thieves Like Us” before starring as part of the ensemble cast of “Nashville” in 1975. After attracting attention in “Nashville,” Altman cast her in “Buffalo Bill and the Indians,” then gave her unusual screen presence a chance to shine in “3 Women,” for which she received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress as well as a BAFTA nomination.
Also in 1977, Duvall played a Rolling Stone journalist in Woody Allen’s film “Annie Hall” and met Paul Simon on the set. The two dated for two years.
Duvall played Olive Oyl in Altman’s “Popeye” in 1980, a role she was born to play, with her huge eyes. Her unflappable performance as a health spa worker in “3 Women” led to Kubrick casting her as Wendy Torrance, the wife of Jack Nicholson’s character in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” based on Stephen King’s novel.
“The Shining” took over a year to shoot, and throughout the shoot, the legendary director pushed Duvall to her limits. Some of her scenes in “The Shining” required over 100 takes.
Years later, she spoke about the difficult shoot with The Hollywood Reporter. “After a while, your body rebels. It says: ‘Stop doing this to me. I don’t want to cry every day.’ And sometimes just the idea would make me cry. Waking up so early on a Monday morning and realizing you have to cry all day because it was scheduled — I would just start crying. I would think, ‘Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.’ And I did it anyway. I don’t know how I did it. Jack said the same thing to me. He said, ‘I don’t know how you do it.’”
His other roles included Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits” and the comedy “Roxanne” with Steve Martin.
During the 1980s Duvall created several anthology shows for children based on classic stories. “Faerie Tale Theatre”, “Tall Tales and Legends”, “Nightmare Classics” and “Bedtime Stories” featured notable directors such as Tim Burton, Francis Ford Coppola and Ivan Passer, and guest stars such as Robin Williams, Jamie Lee Curtis, Elliott Gould, Laura Dern, Molly Ringwald and Ed Asner.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, she met Altman at a party while he was shooting “Brewster McCloud” in Texas.
After returning to Texas, Duvall appeared in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Underneath” in 1995 and starred in Jane Campion’s “The Portrait of a Lady” the following year. She retired from acting in 2002.
Although she lived a reclusive life, her 2016 appearance on “Dr. Phil” received negative publicity for sensationalizing her struggles with mental health. In 2021, she was interviewed by Hollywood Reporter writer Seth Abramovitch, who traveled to Texas and found that she was happy to reminisce on her career and was viewed fondly in her community in the Texas Hill Country, despite her eccentricities.
In 2023, she returned to acting after several years, appearing in the indie horror film “The Forest Hills”, which was not widely available.
He is survived by fellow musician Dan Gilroy and brothers Scott, Stewart and Shane.
