Shelley Duvall, one of the alluring talents to emerge during the New Hollywood era of the 1970's, has passed away on July 10th at the age of seventy five. The filmmaker Robert Altman was the first to recognize her unique presence, casting Duvall in her first film and going on to have a thriving acting career where she memorably captured on screen the inner lives of offbeat and alienated characters.
Born on July 7th in Fort Worth, TX, Duvall stumbled into a movie career purely by chance. Altman was in Houston filming scenes for his wacky, black comedy, "Brewster McCloud", his follow-up to his hit film, "M*A*S*H*", when he noticed a twenty-one year old Duvall, living in the city at the time, at a party. Fascinated by her striking appearance, kooky style and gregarious personality, the director offered her a role as the love interest to the title character, played by Bud Cort.
This would began their long professional relationship with Duvall performing in several of Altman's films which include "McCabe & Mrs. Miller", "Thieves Like Us", "Nashville" and "Buffalo Bill & The Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson". He gave Duvall one of her first major lead roles in "3 Women" with Sissy Spacek in 1977. This psychological drama earned her the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a nomination from BAFTA. She would appear in one final film with Altman in "Popeye", the live-action, musical-comedy based on the animated, spinach loving sailor man (played by Robin Williams) with Duvall appearing in the role she seemed born to play: Popeye's long suffering girlfriend, Olive Oyl.
Duvall would follow this up with one of roles she is probably best known for due to her solid performance and all of hardship she endured during the filming; Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel, "The Shining". It is well documented that this year long shoot was extremely difficult for Duvall, particularly dealing with the mercurial Kubrick who apparently seemed to get pleasure from antagonizing the actress. Yet despite this, Duvall has since been praised for her work in "The Shining" as the suffering wife of a writer (played by Jack Nicholson) who loses a grip on reality and has been viewed as the heart of this horror film.
She would continue to work as an actress but she decided she wanted to get more involved behind the scenes in creating a project. In 1982, Duvall put together with the new cable channel at the time, Showtime, a children's television program called "Faerie Tale Theatre" where she hosted, narrated each episode, occasionally performed and executive produced the show. This popular series, which ran for six years, brought to life classic fairy tales which featured many well-known actors of the day performing in these short live-action episodes.
Over the later years, Duvall had begun to struggle with some mental illness and other health issues including diabetes. She had left Los Angeles and moved to the small community of Blanco, TX in 1994 following the Northridge earthquake. She would retire from acting seven years later but had recently returned to perform in the indie horror film, "The Forrest Hills" two years ago.
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