Shelly Duvall ("The Shining"; "Popeye") Dies at 75

[Pink Freud]

Shelley Duvall, the intrepid, Texas-born movie star whose wide-eyed, winsome presence was a mainstay in the films of Robert Altman and who co-starred in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” has died in hospice care from complications of diabetes. She was 75.

New York Times: "Ms. Duvall wasn’t planning on a film career when she met Mr. Altman while he was filming “Brewster McCloud” (1970); she had thrown a party to sell her husband’s artwork, and members of his film crew were in attendance. Taken with her, they introduced her to Mr. Altman, a director with his own reputation for oddball movies and offbeat casting. He immediately asked her to join the cast, despite her lack of training.

She said yes — and went on to appear in an unbroken string of five more movies directed by Mr. Altman: “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” (1971), “Thieves Like Us” (1974), “Nashville” (1975), “Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson” (1976) and “Three Women” (1977). She also starred as Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams in “Popeye” (1980)."

Los Angeles Times: "“The Shining” continued to live on with Duvall far after the cameras cut. In 2021, Duvall told the Hollywood Reporter about the lasting trauma from her performance and Kubrick’s grueling approach to filming.

“To wake up on a Monday morning, so early, and realize that you had to cry all day because it was scheduled — I would just start crying,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. “I’d be like, ‘Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.’ And yet I did it. I don’t know how I did it. Jack said that to me too. He said, ‘I don’t know how you do it.’”

Duvall had opened up about her career years after she made headlines for a concerning appearance on “Dr. Phil” in 2016. She told host Dr. Phil McGraw that she was being threatened by a man and suggested that her “Popeye” co-star Williams, who died in 2014, was still alive. She also revealed that she was facing mental health issues."

In recent years she became a recluse in Texas, completely turning her back on show business until a brief 2023 return in the indie horror film "The Forest Hills".

From today's New York Times: "She dated Paul Simon and Ringo Starr. She hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1977. Photos of Ms. Duvall, often wearing a draping, sheer dress and holding a cigarette almost as long and thin as she was, became an enduring image of 1970s celebrity life."

[edwin drood]

I really liked Shelley in The Shining, one of my favorite films ever.. absolutely terrifying. Wendy Torrance begins as a sweet wife and mother, probably a frequent Al-Anon attendee and devolves brilliantly into the terrorized wife and mother hoping only to escape the madness of The Overlook. She said Kubrick had her crying 12 hours a day and he called for over 125 takes of the below scene in which she confronts the now insane Jack.

I think the only other movie of hers I saw was Popeye, which I could only take for about 5 minutes. But she was perfectly cast as Olive.

Over the years she went from a doe-eyed beauty to resembling a street dwelling homeless crack addict, complete with missing front teeth. Pity. RIP.

https://youtu.be/cn-sFWgJXOM?si=BFukFhBJNDnJpurV