Shelley Duvall

Shelley Alexis Duvall (July 7, 1949 – July 11, 2024) was an American actress. Known for her collaborations with Robert Altman and for playing eccentric characters, she won a Cannes Film Festival Award and a Peabody Award, and was nominated for a British Academy Film Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Four of her films are preserved in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Born in Texas, Duvall was discovered by Altman, who was impressed by her upbeat presence and cast her in the black comedy film Brewster McCloud (1970). Though hesitant to become an actress, she continued to work with him, appearing in the Western films McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and the crime film Thieves Like Us (1974). Her breakthrough came with his musical film Nashville (1975), and she won acclaim for starring in his drama film 3 Women (1977). She followed this with a supporting role in Woody Allen's romantic comedy film Annie Hall (1977).

Duvall gained further prominence for her leading roles as Olive Oyl in Altman's adventure film Popeye, and Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's horror film The Shining, both in 1980. She appeared in Terry Gilliam's fantasy film Time Bandits (1981), Tim Burton's short comedy horror film Frankenweenie (1984), and Fred Schepisi's comedy film Roxanne (1987). She ventured into producing television programming aimed at children and youth in the latter half of the 1980s, creating and hosting the programs Faerie Tale Theatre (1982–1987), Tall Tales & Legends (1985–1987), Nightmare Classics (1989) and Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories (1992–1994).

During the 1990s, Duvall acted sporadically, playing supporting roles in Steven Soderbergh's thriller film The Underneath (1995) and Jane Campion's drama film The Portrait of a Lady (1996). After appearing in Gabrielle Burton's comedy film Manna from Heaven (2002), she left acting until returning for her final role in the horror film The Forest Hills (2023). Her mental health in the interim was covered by the media, briefly turning her private life public.

Early life
Shelley Alexis Duvall was born on July 7, 1949, in Fort Worth, Texas,  the first child of Bobbie Ruth Crawford (née Massengale, 1929–2020), a real estate broker and in the legal field, and Robert Richardson "Bobby" Duvall (1919–1994), a cattle auctioneer-turned-lawyer. Her younger brothers were Scott, Shane, and Stewart.

For her first few years, Duvall lived in various locations throughout Texas due to her father's work, before the family settled in Houston when she was five years old. She was in a choir. She was an artistic and energetic young child, eventually earning the nickname "Manic Mouse" from her mother. She became interested in science at a young age; as a teenager she aspired to become a scientist. After graduating from Waltrip High School in 1967, she sold cosmetics at Foley's, a department store; she attended South Texas Junior College and majored in nutrition and diet therapy.

1970s
Around 1970, she accidentally met Robert Altman at a party in Houston while he was shooting Brewster McCloud (1970) on location. Several crew members on the film were fascinated by Duvall's upbeat presence and unique physical appearance, and asked her to be part of the feature. Duvall reflected on committing to the project: "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." Duvall had never left Texas before Altman offered her a role. She flew to Hollywood, and subsequently appeared in the film as Susanne, the free-spirited love interest to Bud Cort's reclusive Brewster. Beatrice Loayza of The Atlantic said the character "would've seemed innocuous enough were it not for the actor's hypnotic charms". Altman chose Duvall for roles as an unsatisfied mail-order bride in McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and the daughter of a convict—and mistress to Keith Carradine's character—in Thieves Like Us (1974). Duvall appeared as a spaced-out groupie in Altman's ensemble comedy Nashville (1975), which was a critical and commercial success, and a sympathetic Wild West woman in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976). The same year, Duvall left Altman to star as Bernice, a wealthy girl from Wisconsin in PBS's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1976). She also hosted an evening of Saturday Night Live on May 14, 1977, and appeared in five sketches: "Programming Change", "Video Vixens", "Night of the Moonies", "Van Arguments", and "Goodnights".

In 1977, Duvall gave what some critics considered to be one of her best performances in Altman's psychological thriller 3 Women, portraying Mildred "Millie" Lammoreaux, a woman living in a dreary California desert town. Although there was a written screenplay, Duvall, like other cast members, improvised many of her lines. In spite of the film not being a major box-office success, it received critical acclaim. Texas Monthly critics Marie Brenner and Jesse Kornbluth praised Duvall for giving an "extraordinary performance". Michael Sragow of The New Yorker called her "brilliant: she coins a brand-new caricature of the confident yet clueless single female, then suggests a real person underneath." Robbie Freeling of IndieWire believed the film succeeded because of Duvall: "it's one of the finest films of the seventies, and Duvall deserves a lion's share of the credit." Her performance garnered the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress, as well as a British Academy Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination. She next appeared in a minor role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977).

1980s
Duvall's next role was portraying Wendy Torrance in the horror film The Shining (1980), directed by Stanley Kubrick. Jack Nicholson said in the 2001 documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures that Kubrick was great to work with but that he was "a different director" with her. Because of his methodical nature, principal photography took a year to complete. The film's script was changed so often that Nicholson stopped reading each draft. Kubrick antagonized his actors, and he and she argued frequently. He intentionally isolated her and went through exhausting shoots, such as the baseball bat scene, which she had performed 127 times. Afterward, she presented Kubrick with clumps of hair that had fallen out due to the extreme stress of filming. For the last nine months of shooting, she said that the role required her to cry twelve hours a day, five or six days a week, and "it was so difficult being hysterical for that length of time". In an interview with Roger Ebert, Duvall said that making the film was "almost unbearable. But from other points of view, really very nice, I suppose." In a 2001 interview, she later said "I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Why? Because of Stanley. And it was a fascinating learning experience, it was such intense work that I think it makes you smarter. But I wouldn't want to go through it again." In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Duvall spoke openly of the emotional toll of the role and the challenges of long days on the set, but said that Kubrick was "very warm and friendly" to her.

Despite positive reviews of her performance, she was controversially nominated for Worst Actress at the Golden Raspberry Awards' inaugural ceremony; it was rescinded on March 31, 2022, and Golden Raspberries cofounder Maureen Murphy said she regretted nominating Duvall. Anne Billson of The Guardian stated that "Duvall's horrified reactions as her husband reveals himself to be a mortal threat provide the film with many of its iconic moments." Bilge Ebiri of Vulture wrote: "Looking into Duvall's huge eyes from the front row of a theater, I found myself riveted by a very poignant form of fear. Not the fear of an actor out of her element, or the more mundane fear of a victim being chased around by an ax-wielding maniac. Rather, it was something far more disquieting, and familiar: the fear of a wife who's experienced her husband at his worst, and is terrified that she'll experience it again." Jessica Jalali of Screen Rant ranked it the best performance of her career, calling her "the heart of the film; she is out of her depth in dealing with her husband's looming insanity while trying to protect her young son, all while being fearful of the malevolence around her". Tim Grierson of RogerEbert.com similarly called it one of her best performances, writing that "This is no simple "scream queen" performance as Duvall makes Wendy's terror and determination grippingly, movingly real. Did Kubrick push her to extremes to reach such heights? Perhaps, but the accomplishment is Duvall's, full stop."

While Duvall was in London shooting The Shining, Robert Altman cast her to portray Olive Oyl in his big-screen adaptation of Popeye, opposite Robin Williams. The film was a commercial success despite negative critical reviews, while Duvall was praised for her performance. Roger Ebert wrote: "Duvall is like a precious piece of china with a tinkling personality. She looks and sounds like almost nobody else, and if it is true that she was born to play the character Olive Oyl (and does so in Altman's new musical Popeye), it is also true that she has possibly played more really different kinds of characters than almost any other young actress of the 1970s." Duvall's role of Pansy in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits (1981) followed. In 1982, Duvall narrated, hosted, and was executive producer of the children's television program Faerie Tale Theatre. She starred in seven episodes of the series; "Rumpelstiltskin" (1982), "Rapunzel" (1983), "The Nightingale" (1983), "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1984), "Puss in Boots" (1985), and "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" (1986). Before the program's first episode "The Frog Prince", which starred Robin Williams and Teri Garr, Duvall produced 27 hour-long episodes of the program. In 1985, she created Tall Tales & Legends, another one-hour anthology series for Showtime, which featured adaptations of American folk tales. As with Faerie Tale Theatre, the series starred well-known Hollywood actors with Duvall as host, executive producer, and occasional guest star. The series ran for nine episodes and garnered Duvall an Emmy nomination.

While Duvall was producing Faerie Tale Theatre, it was reported that she was to star as the lead in the film adaptation of Tom Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which was also to star Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Cindy Hall, and Sissy Spacek. The project was delayed and when finally released in 1993, starred an entirely different cast. She landed roles in films and television series: the mother of a boy whose dog is struck by car in Tim Burton's short film Frankenweenie (1984), and as Laura Burroughs in Booker (also 1984), a biographical television short based on the life of Booker T. Washington, directed by Stan Lathan. Of her role in Frankenweenie, Jacob Slankard of Collider described Duvall as "the most persuasive tool" Burton had, and believed he succeeded in "calling on an actress who can signal to the audience that she's much more than her initial bearings make her out to be, and that was Duvall's specialty." Next, Duvall appeared as a lonely and timid woman who receives a message from a flying saucer in The Twilight Zone episode "The Once and Future King/A Saucer of Loneliness", and the friend of Steve Martin's character in the comedy Roxanne (1987).

In 1988, Duvall founded a new production company called Think Entertainment to develop programs and television movies for cable channels. She had started another production company, Platypus, in 1982. She created Nightmare Classics (1989), a third Showtime anthology series which featured adaptations of well-known horror stories by authors including Edgar Allan Poe. Unlike the previous two series, Nightmare Classics was aimed at a teenage and adult audience. It was the least successful series that Duvall produced for Showtime and ran for only four episodes.

1990s
In 1990, she played Little Bo Peep in Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme, which she also produced. In 1991, Duvall portrayed Jenny Wilcox, the wife of Charlie Wilcox (Christopher Lloyd) in the Hulk Hogan action-adventure film Suburban Commando. In October of the same year, Duvall released two compact discs, Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall... Sweet Dreams which feature Duvall singing lullaby songs and Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall... Merry Christmas, on which Duvall sings Christmas songs.

In 1992, Think Entertainment joined the newly formed Universal Family Entertainment to create Duvall's fourth Showtime original series, Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories, which featured animated adaptations of children's storybooks with celebrity narrators and garnered her a second Emmy nomination. Duvall produced a fifth series for Showtime, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, before selling Think Entertainment in 1993 and retiring as a producer. Also in 1992, Duvall landed a guest spot on the television series L.A. Law as Margo Stanton, a show dog owner and breeder who presses charges against the owner of a Welsh Corgi that mated with her prize-winning Afghan Hound.

Duvall appeared as the vain, over-friendly, but harmless Countess Gemini—sister to the calculating Gilbert Osmond (John Malkovich)—in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of the Henry James novel The Portrait of a Lady. In 1997, she played a beatific nun in the comedy film Changing Habits and a besotted, murderous, ostrich-farm owner in Guy Maddin's fourth feature Twilight of the Ice Nymphs. In the same year, she played Chris Cooper's character's gullible wife who yearns for a better life in Horton Foote's made-for-television film, Alone.

Duvall continued to make film and television appearances throughout the late-1990s. In 1998, she played Mrs. Jackson in the comedy Home Fries and Gabby in the direct-to-video children's film Casper Meets Wendy. Near the end of the decade, she returned to the horror genre with a minor role in Tale of the Mummy (1998), co-starring Christopher Lee and Gerard Butler, and The 4th Floor (1999), co-starring Juliette Lewis.

2000s
In the 2000s, Duvall accepted minor roles, including as the mother of Matthew Lawrence's character in the horror-comedy Boltneck (2000) and as Haylie Duff's aunt in the independent family film Dreams in the Attic, which was sold to the Disney Channel but was never released. After a small role in the 2002 independent film Manna from Heaven, Duvall took an extended hiatus from acting and public life.

2020s
After a 20-year absence, it was announced in October 2022 that Duvall would be acting in The Forest Hills, an independent horror-thriller film directed and written by Scott Goldberg. The film is about a man (Mendez) tormented by nightmarish visions after experiencing head trauma in the Catskill Mountains. Initially playing a cameo role, Duvall joined the ensemble after expressing interest in performing more scenes. She described her acting comeback as "so much fun" and joked that "Jessica Tandy won an Oscar when she was 80. I can still win." To Entertainment Weekly, Goldberg described Duvall as "an amazing actress to work with, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to direct her." A trailer for The Forest Hills was released in November 2022.

Personal life and death
Duvall married artist Bernard Sampson in 1970, but their marriage disintegrated as Duvall's acting career accelerated, leading to their divorce in 1974. While she was shooting Annie Hall in New York in 1976, Duvall met singer-songwriter Paul Simon. The couple began a relationship and lived together for two years. Their relationship ended when Duvall introduced Simon to her friend, actress Carrie Fisher; Fisher took up with Simon. In the late 1970s, Duvall dated musician Ringo Starr. She was in a relationship with musician and former Breakfast Club lead vocalist Dan Gilroy from 1989 through the remainder of her life. The pair began their relationship while co-starring in Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme. She had no children.

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Duvall moved from Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles to Blanco southwest of Austin, Texas. She decided to return to her home state in 1994, while shooting the Steven Soderbergh film The Underneath. She told The New York Times that her reasons for moving were the health of one of her brothers and the earthquake. In 2002, Duvall retired from acting for 21 years. In an interview with People magazine, Duvall said of her retirement: "It's the longest sabbatical I ever took, but it was for really important reasons—to get in touch with my family again." During this time, she kept her personal life private, which nonetheless received media coverage.

In November 2016, Duvall was interviewed by Phil McGraw on his daytime talk show, Dr. Phil, about her mental illness. The segment received significant criticism from the public, with some claiming she was exploited. Vivian Kubrick, daughter of director Stanley Kubrick, posted an open letter to McGraw on Twitter, while actress Mia Farrow tweeted that it was "upsetting and unethical to exploit Shelley Duvall at this vulnerable time in her life".

Director Lee Unkrich located Duvall in 2018, with the two going on to become friends. Unkrich noted that Duvall remained very proud of her career. In 2021, Seth Abramovitch, writer for The Hollywood Reporter, found Duvall for an interview saying, "I only knew that it didn't feel right for McGraw's insensitive sideshow to be the final word on her legacy." The article noted that her memory was "sharp and full of engrossing stories".

Duvall died due to complications from diabetes at her home in Blanco, on July 11, 2024. Her passing was announced by Gilroy to The Hollywood Reporter. Several tributes were posted to Duvall, including messages from Stephen King and the Stanley Kubrick estate.

Legacy
Duvall was known for her charismatic, upbeat presence, and is considered one of the most successful actresses of the 1970s. Four of her films have been inducted in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1975), Annie Hall (1977), and The Shining (1980). For her role in the lattermost, she was established as a scream queen by several publications. MovieWeb ranked Duvall as the fifth-best scream queen of all time, writing that her performance in The Shining was "a thing of glory".

Beatrice Loayza of The Atlantic said that Duvall was "made for the screen" and called her "a gravitational force". Günseli Yalcinkaya of Dazed dubbed her the "queen of awkward beauty" and "one of the most magnetic on-screen presences of the last century." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described her as "unique and often misunderstood" and said she "was intensely modern, the very face of the New American Cinema, but was also in her slender grace and wide-eyed charm, and her way with a cigarette, a neo-flapper, a kind of 20s or 30s woman reborn long after the second world war which also made her an excellent casting choice in period movies." The New York Times called her a "fixture" of Hollywood, and wrote: "With her gossamer frame and toothy smile, she was one of the biggest film stars of the 1970s." The New Yorker critic Pauline Kael once called her the "female Buster Keaton" and believed she was "bizarrely original… able to be herself on the screen in a way that nobody has ever been before." Giacomo Aricò of Vogue deemed her "bewitching" and a "master of cinema".

In the 2020s, clips of Duvall hosting Faerie Tale Theatre went viral on social media, such as TikTok, where the phrase "Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall" has frequently been sampled. The resurgence of Faerie Tale Theatre helped introduce her to Generation Z.

Filmography
Duvall's most positively reviewed films, according to the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, include:


 * Brewster McCloud (1970)
 * McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
 * Thieves Like Us (1974)
 * Nashville (1975)
 * 3 Women (1977)
 * Annie Hall (1977)
 * The Shining (1980)
 * Time Bandits (1981)
 * Roxanne (1987)

Discography
Albums
 * Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall...Sweet Dreams (1991)
 * Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall...Merry Christmas (1991)