Shelley Duvall, the US actress best known for appearances in movies like “The Shining,” “Annie Hall,” and “Nashville,” has died at 75. Her partner, Dan Gilroy, was cited by 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.” She died in her sleep due to complications stemming from diabetes at her home in Texas.
Other titles that brought her fame include the 1977 drama “3 Women,” directed by Robert Altman, for which she won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival and received one from BAFTA. In 1980, she took on the role of Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams in Altman’s musical “Popeye.” In the midst of her success, Duvall spent twenty years out of the Hollywood spotlight, returning in 2023’s “The Forest Hills.”
What made Duvall unique was her screen presence, having those big brown eyes and offbeat charisma.
She began her career in the 1970 dark comedy “Brewster McCloud,” marking the start of her collaboration with Altman. They reunited for “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” in 1971, and Altman later praised her performance in “Thieves Like Us,” saying, “I knew you were good, but I didn’t know you were great.”
Altman cast her in 1975’s “Nashville,” his satire of US society, politics, and country music. In “3 Women,” Duvall played a talkative health spa attendant, a role The Guardian’s Anne Billson ranked as her best and “one of the greatest performances of the 1970s.”
That same year, she won headliner status in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.”
Her most famous role came opposite Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic 1980 film, “The Shining” the film is notoriously hard to make, and Duvall later said, “I had to cry 12 hours a day, all day long, the last nine months straight, five or six days a week.”
Duvall went on to star in “Time Bandits” and “Roxanne.”. She also founded her production companies and developed and hosted the classic 1980s children’s TV show “Faerie Tale Theatre.”. Yet her acting career tapered off in the 1990s, one of the better of her later works being “The Portrait of a Lady.”.
Attributed reasons for this disappearance include a 1994 earthquake which damaged her Los Angeles home and the stress of her brother’s cancer diagnosis. In an interview with The New York Times in 2023, she ruminated on feeling that the film industry had left her behind, noting, “I was a star.
I had leading roles. People think it’s just ageing, but it’s not. It’s violence.”.
All this gave rise to health issues when she appeared on the “Dr. Phil” show in 2016, talking about her issues with mental health. Gilroy described the post the progress years as paranoid and delusional for Duvall, but her love towards acting helped her to make a comeback for “The Forest Hills”. Here was her comeback as a critic, novelist and Nicole Flattery was welcoming towards the return, as her talent and spices of magic was the very same.
An article that called her the “ultimate film star” pronounced her “a master at playing characters who act happy when they’re sad, their daffiness masking depth.”
FAQs on Shelley Duvall
What are Shelley Duvall’s best films?
Shelley Duvall has worked in some of her best movies, such as “The Shining,” “Annie Hall,” “Nashville,” and “3 Women.” She performed in “Popeye” in which she portrayed Olive Oyl, the famous kids’ TV show “Faerie Tale Theatre.”
What have been the problems Shelley Duvall was facing so that she was leaving Hollywood?
Shelley Duvall left Hollywood mainly because of several personal and professional challenges she was facing, including the aftermath of a 1994 earthquake that had damaged her home and stress related to her brother’s bout with cancer. She also felt abandoned by the film industry.
