Shelley Duvall in 1977’s “Three Women”
Courtesy of the Everett Collection
Shelley Duvall was a skinny girl with saucer eyes who appeared in seven of her mentor’s films. Robert Altmanand dodged the crazy axe Jack Nicholson Stanley Kubrick’s The Shiningpassed away on Thursday at the age of 75.
Duvall died in her sleep from complications from diabetes at her home in Blanco, Texas, said Dan Gilroy, her life partner since 1989. The Hollywood Reporter.
“My lovely, kind and wonderful life partner and friend has left us. I have suffered too much recently but I am now free. Fly away my beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy said.
Duval with messy hair, November 2016 Appeared on an episode of the syndicated talk show Dr. Phil She then revealed that she suffered from mental illness. “I’m very sick. I need help,” she said. Four years later, ThursdaySeth Abramovich I visited her For a memorable story.
Before leaving Hollywood for her native Texas in the mid-1990s, Duvall had built a successful career as both a versatile and unique actress and head of her own production company, Think Entertainment, which produced innovative, star-studded children’s programming for cable television, for which Duvall was nominated twice for an Emmy Award.
While attending junior college in her hometown of Houston, Duvall was spotted by Altman’s staff and persuaded to take a screen test, after which she made her big screen debut as teen seductress and Astrodome tour guide Suzanne Davis. Brewster MacLeod (1970).
Ten years later, Duvall sang She starred alongside Robin Williams and played the iconic comic book character Olive. oilplaying a strong-willed damsel in distress in Altman’s live-action version. Popeye.
In between, the Childlike star collaborated with Altman on the role of Mail Order Bride. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) A woman falls in love with a bank robber in Mississippi. Kaladin in We are like thieves (1974) played LA Joan, a groupie with a penchant for hot pants and platform shoes. Nashville (1975) as wife of President Grover Cleveland Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or a History Lesson from Sitting Bull (1976) Millie LamoreauxA fanciful attendant at a health spa for seniors in Palm Springs Three Women (1977).
Questioner The New York Times In 1977, when asked why she chose to continue working with Altman, she said Said“He offers me really great roles. They’re not all the same. He has a lot of faith in me and he has trust and respect for me. He doesn’t limit me or intimidate me. I love him.”
“I remember the first piece of advice he gave me: ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously.’ Sometimes I Self-centeredThen all of a sudden, that advice pops into my head and I laugh.”
Altman once said that Duvall “could swing every side of the pendulum: charming, zany, sophisticated, pathetic and beautiful.”
She won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as Millie.
Film adaptations of Stephen King novels The ShiningDuvall said she was challenged during the 13-month shoot in England in the horror classic, in which she plays Wendy Torrance, a beleaguered wife spending a brutal winter at the desolate Overlook Hotel with her writer husband (Nicholson) and young son (Danny Lloyd), who slowly goes mad.
Kubrick made her “cry for 12 hours a day for weeks.” She was in 1981 interview and people magazine. “I’ll never give that much again. If you want to feel pain and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.”
In January 2021, she told Abramovic that before her scenes, she puts on her Sony Walkman and listens to “sad songs, or I just think about things in my life that are really sad, and how I miss my family and friends. But after a while, my body rebels. It’s like, ‘Stop it. I don’t want to cry every day.’ And sometimes just the thought makes me cry. I’ll wake up really early on a Monday morning and realize I have to cry all day because I have plans, and I’ll start crying. I’m like, ‘Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.’ But still, I did it. I don’t know how I did it. Jack said that to me too, like, ‘I don’t know how you do it.'”
According to one report, she was forced to perform the iconic baseball bat scene an exhausting 127 times.
Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”
Courtesy of the Everett Collection
Duvall is memorable every time she appears on screen, Spacy Woody Allen’s Rock Journalist Annie Hall (1977) She co-starred with Michael Palin in Terry Gilliam’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Final Battle, and made everyone laugh as Pansy. Time Bandit (1981) as Steve Martin’s best friend, Dixie. Roxanne (1987).
Roger Ebert I have written In 1980, Duvall was described as “unlike anyone else in appearance, unlike anyone else’s voice, and has played a truly diverse range of roles, perhaps more so than any other young actress of her generation.” 1970s.
“In all her roles, there is an air of openness, as if there is no camera or anything between her open face and our eyes. Dialogue“The way she plays the role, the makeup, the way she acts, she just naturally gets into the role.”
she Return to acting After completing his 20-year career in 2022 Forest Hills.
Shelley Alexis Duvall was born in Fort Worth on July 7, 1949, the oldest of four children (she was the only daughter). Her parents, Bob, a cattle auctioneer turned lawyer, and her mother, Bobby, a real estate agent, moved the family to Houston when Shelley was 5. She attended South Texas Junior College, studying to be a research scientist and developing an interest in nutrition.
At the party she threw fianceArtist Bernard Sampson met Altman’s film crew when they were in town. Brewster MacLeodThey introduced her to director and producer Lou Adler, who offered the awkward-toothed 20-year-old a role in the film.
Duvall, who had never traveled outside of Texas, initially refused, but then agreed to take a screen test. “I got tired of arguing and thought, ‘Maybe I could be an actress,'” she said.
Shelley Duvall in Robert Altman’s “Thieves Like Us.”
Courtesy of the Everett Collection
she resume Scott Fitzgerald’s Bernice has a bob haircut (1976) PBS, Frankenweenie (1984), Changing habits (1997), Home fries (1998), Jane Campions Portrait of a Lady (1996), Suburban Commando (1991) and was her final acting appearance for some time. Manna from Heaven (2002).
In 1981, Duvall Sweet dreamsa children’s music album, and a year later, Showtime bought her proposal, which became a Peabody Award-winning 26-episode series. fairy story theaterShe served as executive producer, narrator and star.
Three years later, she Legends and legendsalso a Showtime hour-long anthology series, is an adaptation of American folk tales.
Duvall persuaded on both shows. A-list stars Williams, Teri GahEric Idle, Jeff Bridges, Mick JaguarLisa Minnelli Vanessa Redgrave To scale up the business, both series were also big hits on video.
In 1987 she founded Think Entertainment, a company specializing in family entertainment. Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories (Like a bed MidlerMichael J. Fox and Dudley Moore read fairy tales) Mrs. Piggle Wiggleand she is an ABC Backfield MovementStarring Roseanne and Tom Arnold.
Duval said, Brewster MacLeodHowever, they divorced four years later in 1974, shortly after arriving in Los Angeles.
She later dated musician Paul Simon, who was born in New York. Annie Hall (He also had a cameo in the film.) They lived together on Central Park West until he left her friend, Carrie Fisher (she said she broke the news to him just as he was about to board the Concorde for London). The Shiningand she cried throughout the flight.
Duvall also lived with Stan Wilson, who played the barber Oscar in the film “Oscar the Barber.” PopeyeShe then met singer and drummer Dan Gilroy, a member of the pop group The Breakfast Club and a former boyfriend of Madonna.
She and Gilroy fell in love with each other after starring in the 1990 Disney Channel movie. Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ RhymeSurvivors include brothers, Scott, Stewart and Shane;
Seth Abramovich contributed to this report.
