Shelley Duvall is famous for her posthumous role as Wendy, the wife of Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) in The Shining (1980 by Stanley Kubrick). He was 75 years old. The actress’ partner, Dan Gilroy, confirmed that she died in her sleep, at her home in Texas, due to complications from diabetes.
Shelley Duvall
“My dear, sweet and wonderful life partner has left us. Too much suffering recently, now she is free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy told The Hollywood Reporter. After making his debut in the film ‘Nashville’ with Altman (1975) and the film ‘Annie & Annie’ (1977) with Woody Allen, Duvall was successful for the first time in the role also co-starred in the controversial film ‘Three Women’ with Altman. The great American director himself made her his favorite actress, so much so that he directed her in seven films. For ‘Three Women’ Duvall won the Prix d’Interprétation féminine al Cannes Film Festival.
She was born on July 7, 1949 in Fort Worth, Texas, and became known to the general public especially regarding Wendy’s performance e so for Olivia Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriendin Popeye, also by Altman.
The experience of The Shining series left a deep mark on her. Stanley Kubrick auditions her to play that part where she is the wife of a writer who goes crazy and terrorizes her and her child. In 1981 the actress told ‘People’ that the work, which lasted 13 months, was exhausting and that the director made her “cry 12 hours a day for weeks on end”. “I will not give so much again. If you want to suffer and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.” In the most famous scene, Nicholson’s character threatens Duvall axe: said to require 127 takes To satisfy Kubrick.
Courtesy of the Everett Collection/ContrastActress Shelley Duvall in the famous scene from the movie “The Shining”
From 1988 to 1993 he also produced several television series. After playing a small role in the 2002 independent film Manna from Heaven, Duvall took a long break from acting and public life. In 2016 he announced that he was suffering from mental problems, also as a result of the traumatic experience that lived on the set of The Shining. After a twenty-year absence from the scene, in October 2022 it was announced that Duvall would return to star in ‘The Forest Hills’, an independent horror film written and directed by Scott Goldberg and starring Edward Furlong, Chiko Mendez and Dee Wallace . . This was the last performance of the actor.