2024-07-11 23:40:57
LOS ANGELES. Agoodbye to the unmistakable and large round eyes of terror in The Shining. Shelley Duvall, famous, among others, for her role as Wendy, Jack Torrance’s anguished wife in the 1980 horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, has died at the age of 75. The actress passed away quietly, in her sleep. Her partner Dan Gilroy confirmed it to the Hollywood Reporter.
She died at her home in Texas from complications of diabetes. “My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner has left us. Too much suffering lately, now she is free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy told the magazine. Born in Fort Worth, Texas on July 7, 1949, Shelley Duvall was destined for a career in science when she was discovered by chance at a party by a crew working for Robert Altman during the filming of ‘Brewster McCloud’ (Even Birds Can Kill).
She landed a part in the 1970 film. Altman became her mentor from then on and directed her seven more times, including as Olivia Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend, in ‘Popeye’. She played other significant roles in ‘Nashville’ (1975), ‘Annie Hall’ (1977), ‘Three Women’, a film for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. But it was the role of Wendy, in The Shining, that definitively established her.
Memorable is the scene, ‘Here’s Johnny’ (Here’s Johnny) when Jack Torrance, alias Jack Nicholson, tries to enter, breaking down the door with an axe, in the room where his wife Wendy is. She screams in terror and holds a large kitchen knife in her hand to defend herself. For the part of Wendy, Duvall was put to the test and the interpretation marked her life forever. Filming lasted 13 months and took place in London. The film entered the Guinness Book of Records for the most takes, 138 times, for a scene with dialogue. While the one in which the actress retreats on the stairs trying to keep Nicholson at bay with a baseball bat was repeated 127 times. In 1981, in an interview with People, the actress said that Kubrick made her cry for 12 hours a day.
“I will never get to that point again,” he stressed, “if you want to suffer and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.” While in a 2021 interview with the Hollywood Reporter he revealed that before shooting he would put on headphones and listen to sad songs or think about something really unhappy. But he soon realized that his body had started to rebel and sometimes he began to despair at the mere thought of having to cry every day. Eventually he developed a nervous breakdown and in 2016, during the talk show ‘Dr Phil’, he revealed that he had mental health problems.
“I’m very sick,” she explained, “I need help.” For about twenty years, since 2002, she had remained away from the spotlight: she returned to acting for the last time in 2022 in the thriller ‘The Forest Hills’ directed by Scott Goldberg. From 1988 to 1993, she also produced some television series.
2024-07-11 23:40:57