R.I.P. Shelley Duvall, star of The Shining and Robert Altman muse
The star of Nashville and Three Women died at 75 years old
Shelley Duvall—star of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and multiple films by her mentor, Robert Altman—has died. The news was confirmed by her life partner, Dan Gilroy, who told The Hollywood Reporter that she died in her sleep in her home in Blanco, Texas, due to complications from diabetes. “My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy shared. She was 75.
Duvall was known for her eccentric characters and one-of-a-kind, wide-eyed facial expressions. She began her career starring in the films of director Robert Altman, whose team discovered her at a party in her native Texas when she was only in junior college. Her onscreen debut came in 1970’s Brewster McCloud, in which she played an Astrodome tour guide named Suzanne Davis. “I got tired of arguing, and thought maybe I am an actress. They told me to come. I simply got on a plane and did it. I was swept away,” she said of committing to the role in 1977.
From there, Duvall would go on to star in six more Altman films. Those projects included McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971); Thieves Like Us (1974), in which she played a woman who falls in love with a bank robber; Nashville (1975), in which she played a groupie named L.A. Joan; Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976), a revisionist Western film in which she played the wife of President Grover Cleveland; 3 Women (1977), which earned her a Best Actress award at Cannes; and Popeye (1980). According to THR, Altman once raved that his frequent collaborator “was able to swing all sides of the pendulum: charming, silly, sophisticated, pathetic, even beautiful.”
In 1980, she portrayed Wendy Torrance in The Shining, the role she is best known for. But while Wendy remains one of horror’s most iconic characters ever—largely due to Duvall’s perfect scream while trying to avoid the ax of her crazed husband, Jack (Jack Nicholson)—the mythology around her experience behind-the-scenes has grown to almost mythic proportion. Still, it is true that the 13-month shoot was especially grueling. In 1981, Duvall told People Magazine that Kubrick had her “crying 12 hours a day for weeks on end,” with one report (via THR) claiming that she was forced to shoot her final-act scene with the baseball bat an exhausting 127 times. “I will never give that much again,” she said. “If you want to get into pain and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.”