With her large expressive eyes, toothy smile and versatile acting abilities, Duvall made a big impression in some of the most famous Hollywood films of all time.
Born July 7, 1949 in Fort Worth, Texas, her acting career began when she was discovered at a party by the legendary director Robert Altman, who cast her in the 1970 film Brewster McCloud.
Her collaboration with Altman continued and produced some of her most memorable performances. She appeared in his films McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, Nashville and 3 Women, for which she received the Best Actress award at Cannes Film Festival. She also had a small but memorable role in Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning hit Annie Hall
Duvall is arguably best known for playing Wendy Torrance, the wife of Jack Nicholson’s character in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Duvall is at the center of some of the most iconic scary movie moments in history: her horrified reactions to “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” “REDRUM” and Jack’s axe bursting through the bathroom wall make The Shining a true horror classic.
But while the film is beloved and iconic today, it was not fun to shoot: famed perfectionist Kubrick put Duvall through the ringer, keeping her isolated and demanding exhausting retakes.
The scene where Wendy threatens Jack with a baseball bat was shot 127 times. Another scene with Duvall and young actor Danny Lloyd took 148 takes, a Guinness World Record.
“Going through day after day of excruciating work was almost unbearable,” Duvall said, according to Express. “Jack Nicholson’s character had to be crazy and angry all the time. And in my character, I had to cry 12 hours a day, all day long, the last nine months straight, five or six days a week.”
Adding insult to injury, Duvall was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress, though they later rescinded the nomination in 2022 as the abuse she suffered on set came to light. Today, her performance is acclaimed: a retrospective in Vulture described the “very poignant form of fear,” “the fear of a wife who’s experienced her husband at his worst, and is terrified that she’ll experience it again.”
Despite the ordeal, Duvall has also spoken positively about the now-classic film and Stanley Kubrick. She told Roger Ebert that filming The Shining was “almost unbearable” but “from other points of view, really very nice, I suppose.”
Also in 1980, Duvall had another one of her most memorable performance, playing Olive Oyl in the live-action Popeye. The musical film starred Robin Williams in the title role and reteamed Duvall with director Robert Altman. While not a critical success on release, its reputation has improved over time.
Duvall’s other ’80s films include Time Bandits and Roxanne. During this time she also moved into producing children’s television, starting with Faerie Tale Theatre.
Her film career became more sporadic, by 2002 had disappeared from Hollywood. A controversial 2016 interview on Dr. Phil showed Duvall in a mentally unwell state, making bizarre statements about alien implants in her leg, her fear of “the Sheriff of Nottingham, and her belief that Robin Williams was alive and “shapeshifting.”
“I am very sick. I need help,” Duvall says at one point. The interview was widely criticized as exploitative. “I found out the kind of person he is the hard way,” Duvall later told the Hollywood Reporter. “My mother didn’t like him, either. A lot of people, like Dan, said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Shelley.’”
Duvall appeared to be in much better mental health in recent years, giving interviews about her career and even coming out of retirement for a horror film called The Forest Hills.
She is survived by her partner Dan Gilroy, the former lead singer of Breakfast Club. Her first marriage was to Bernard Sampson from 1970 to 1974; she was also romantically involved with singer Paul Simon from 1976 to 1978.
