Shelley Duvall, the intrepid, Texas-born movie star whose wide-eyed, winsome presence was a mainstay in the films of Robert Altman and who co-starred in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” has died. She was 75. Duvall died Thursday in her sleep at her home in Blanco, Texas, her longtime partner, Dan Gilroy, announced. The cause was complications of diabetes, said her friend, the publicist Gary Springer.
“My dear, sweet, wonderful life, partner, and friend left us last night,” Gilroy said in a statement. “Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away beautiful Shelley.”
Duvall was attending junior college in Texas when Altman’s crew members, preparing to film “Brewster McCloud,” encountered her at a party in Houston in 1970. They introduced her to the director, who cast her in “Brewster McCloud” and made her his protege. Duvall would go on to appear in Altman films including “Thieves Like Us,” “Nashville,” “Popeye,” “Three Women” and “McCabe & Ms. Miller.”
“He offers me … good roles,” Duvall told The New York Times in 1977. “None of them have been alike. He has a great confidence in me, and a trust and respect for me, and he doesn’t put any restrictions on me or intimidate me, and I love him. I remember the first advice he ever gave me: ‘Don’t take yourself seriously.’”
Duvall, gaunt and gawky, was no conventional Hollywood starlet. But she had a beguiling frank manner and exuded a singular naturalism. The film critic Pauline Kael called her the “female Buster Keaton.” At her peak, Duvall was a regular star in some of the defining movies of the 1970s and 1980s. In “The Shining,” she played Wendy Torrance, who watches in horror as her husband, Jack (Jack Nicholson), goes crazy while their family is isolated in the Overlook Hotel. It was Duvall’s screaming face that made up half of the film’s most iconic image, along with Jack’s axe coming through the door.
But Duvall disappeared from movies almost as quickly as she arrived in them. By the 1990s, she began retiring from acting. Her last film role was in 2002’s “Manna From Heaven.” Duvall retreated from public life. Earlier this year she gave her first interview in years.
“How would you feel if people were really nice, and then, suddenly, on a dime” — she snapped her fingers — “they turn on you?” Duvall told the Times. “You would never believe it unless it happens to you. That’s why you get hurt, because you can’t really believe it’s true.”
Shelley Duvall, who starred in “The Shining” and worked consistently with director Robert Altman, has died at 75 years old, her partner Dan Gilroy confirmed to CBS News. No cause of death was given but Gilroy told CBS News that Duvall was suffering a lot in the last year of her life, and said that she is now “free to fly away.” Duvall’s first screen role was in the film 1970 “Brewster McCloud,” which was directed by Altman. She worked with Altman again on multiple films, including “Thieves Like Us” and “Nashville,” and in 1977 she took home the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her performance in his film “3 Women.”
In 1980, Duvall starred opposite Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” based on the Stephen King novel. In the same year, she appeared opposite Robin Williams in Altman’s “Popeye,” an adaptation of the beloved comic strip. Duvall continued to work consistently throughout the ’80s and ’90s before retiring from acting in 2002. Duvall appeared on “Dr. Phil” in 2016, where she revealed her struggles with mental illness. The show was accused of taking advantage of her, with Kubrick’s daughter Vivian calling the interview “appallingly cruel” and a “form of “lurid and exploitive entertainment.”
Duvall returned to Hollywood for the 2023 horror movie “The Forest Hills.” It was her last film role. Duvall began her relationship with Gilroy in 1989, when the two co-starred on Disney Channel’s “Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme.” The two lived in Blanco, Texas, and had no children.
Shelley Duvall, the much-loved US character actor and star of films such as The Shining, Annie Hall and Popeye, has died four days after her 75th birthday. Duvall died in her sleep of complications from diabetes at her home in Blanco, Texas, according to Dan Gilroy, who had been her life partner since 1989. Gilroy told The Hollywood Reporter: “My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley.”
Duvall made her name in a series of landmark 1970s classics, including seven films with the director Robert Altman, who first discovered her while she was in college in her hometown of Houston, Texas. She made her debut in Brewster McCloud, as a teenage tour guide, before starring as a mail-order bride in McCabe & Mrs Miller in 1971. Other collaborations between the pair included Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill and the Indians and 1977’s 3 Women as a fantasising health spa attendant, which many consider her finest work, and which won her the best actress prize at the Cannes film festival.
Duvall, said Altman, “was able to swing all sides of the pendulum: charming, silly, sophisticated, pathetic, even beautiful.” “I love him,” she told the New York Times in 1977, asked about the longevity of their relationship. “He offers me damn good roles. None of them have been alike. He has a great confidence in me, and a trust and respect for me, and he doesn’t put any restrictions on me or intimidate me.” She added: “I remember the first advice he ever gave me: ‘Don’t take yourself seriously.’ Sometimes I find myself feeling self-centered, and then all of a sudden that bit of advice will pop into my head and I’ll laugh.”
Duvall remains perhaps best known for her role as the wife of Jack Nicholson’s axe-wielding author in The Shining (1980). The film had a famously gruelling 13-month shoot, with one scene in which Nicholson’s character torments Duvall’s with a baseball bat reportedly running to 127 takes. Kubrick had her “crying 12 hours a day for weeks on end,” said Duvall in a 1981 interview with People magazine. “I will never give that much again. If you want to get into pain and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.”
She also appeared in two landmark comedies: 1977’s Annie Hall, as the vague Rolling Stone reporter who describes sex with Woody Allen’s Alvy Singer as “really a Kafkaesque experience … I mean that as a compliment” and in 1980 opposite Robin Williams in Altman’s live-action Popeye. Her iconic rendition of the song He Needs Me was later repurposed by Paul Thomas Anderson for the 2002 romcom Punch-Drunk Love. In 1981 she appeared in Terry Gilliam’s fantasy film Time Bandits; three years later she was in Tim Burton’s seminal comedy horror short Frankenweenie and in 1987, starred opposite Steve Martin in modern day Cyrano de Bergerac take, Roxanne.
As the decade progressed, Duvall increasingly devoted herself to producing children’s television, particularly focusing on new adaptations of classic fairytales, for which she was Emmy nominated and won a Peabody award. She returned to acting only sporadically through the 1990s, most notably for supporting roles in Steven Soderbergh’s 1995 thriller The Underneath as well as Jane Campion’s Henry James adaptation The Portrait of a Lady the following year. A 21-year break from the profession ended in 2022, when Duvall featured in low-budget horror The Forest Hills.
Duvall was open about her health struggles, appearing on US talk show Dr Phil 2016 to discuss her mental illness, saying: “I am very sick. I need help.” The episode was widely condemned for appearing to exploit a vulnerable older person. In 2021, a fragile yet happy Duvall was interviewed in the Hollywood Reporter, and discussed the trauma she had felt working on The Shining, as well as in the aftermath of both the Dr Phil show and the 1994 earthquakes which destroyed much of her house.
Duvall met Gilroy, the former lead singer of Breakfast Club, in 1989, when they worked together on a children’s show. She had previously been married to the artist Bernard Sampson, and in a relationship with the musician Paul Simon, who she met while making Annie Hall.
“The Shining” actor Shelley Duvall died Thursday at her home in Blanco, Texas, her partner Dan Gilroy said. She was 75. Gilroy said Duvall had been in hospice and bedridden for the last few months due to complications from diabetes. She died in her sleep, he said in a phone call. “She’s gone after much suffering,” said Gilroy, her life partner since 1989. “I can’t tell you how much I miss her.”
Duvall is best known for her roles in the 1980 horror movie classic “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson and the 1980 comedy “Popeye” with Robin Williams. Known for working with film director and screenwriter Robert Altman, her first screen role was in Altman’s 1970 comedy “Brewster McCloud,” Variety reported. Other works included “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Thieves Like Us,” “Nashville,” “Buffalo Bill and the Indians” and “Annie Hall.” In 1977, she won the Cannes Film Festival award for best actress for her role in “3 Women.” According to Variety, her role in “3 Women” led to her being cast in “The Shining.”
In a 1981 interview with People, Duvall noted that the horror movie based on Stephen King’s book catapulted her career but said filming it was challenging. She told the magazine that director Stanley Kubrick had her “crying 12 hours a day for weeks on end.” “I will never give that much again. If you want to get into pain and call it art, go ahead, but not with me” she said.
Duvall started to step away from acting in the 1990s, The Associated Press reported. She last appeared in “The Forest Hills” in 2023, her first role after a 20-year hiatus. Scott Goldberg, who directed “The Forest Hills,” remembered Duvall as a “radiant, very kind and witty” person. “She was wonderful to work with and she did a great job. Very proud of her,” he said in a phone call Thursday. Goldberg said having the opportunity to work with Duvall, whom he considered one of his idols, was a “big accomplishment.” Her death has left him in disbelief. “It was automatic sadness and shock,” he said. “She was nothing but sweet and nice and sharp, and I really will miss her.”
Source: AP, CBS News, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, People, NBC News
