A true icon and legend in the world of entertainment, actress Shelley Duvall has passed away at the age of 75, her longtime partner Dan Gilroy tells The Hollywood Reporter this morning.
“Duvall died in her sleep of complications from diabetes at her home in Blanco, Texas.”
“My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy said in a statement shared by the website.
Shelley Duvall is of course known here in the horror world for her all-time-great performance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, playing opposite Jack Nicholson as Wendy Torrance.
Duvall got her start in the 1970s working with director Robert Altman, making her debut in the 1970 film Brewster McCloud. She went on to work with Altman on McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974), Nashville (1975) and 3 Women (1977), as well as Woody Allen in Annie Hall (1977), and Altman later cast her as Olive Oyl for the Popeye movie in 1980.
That was the very same year Duvall starred in Kubrick’s The Shining, with subsequent roles throughout the 1980s including Time Bandits, Tim Burton’s original short film Frankenweenie, and Roxanne. Duvall even hosted her own series “Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre” from 1982 to 1987, which featured a collection of classic fairy tale adaptations.
Subsequent TV shows hosted by Duvall, “Shelley Duvall’s Tall Tales & Legends” and “Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories,” earned the actress Emmy nominations in 1988 and 1992.
In the 1990s and beyond, Duvall appeared in Suburban Commando, Aliens for Breakfast, “Wishbone,” Casper Meets Wendy, Home Fries, and The Portrait of a Lady, and she was last seen on screen in 2002’s Manna from Heaven. Duvall has been living a quiet life outside the entertainment industry ever since, away from the public eye outside of occasional interviews.
Shelley Duvall’s final performance will be featured in the upcoming horror film The Forest Hills, which has already wrapped production and will be releasing soon. The role in the new werewolf movie will be Duvall’s first on-screen appearance in more than 20 years.
Shelley Duvall in ‘The Forest Hills’