Shelly Duvall, best known for Wendy Torrance in The Shining, has passed away today at age 75.
Shelley Duvall, the saucer-eyed, rail-thin waif who starred in seven films directed by her mentor, Robert Altman, and avoided the ax wielded by an unhinged Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, died Thursday. She was 75.
Duvall died in her sleep of complications from diabetes at her home in Blanco, Texas, Dan Gilroy, her life partner since 1989, told The Hollywood Reporter.
“My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy said.
She also was a regular in many of Robert Altman’s films including Nashville and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. But her big role was as Olive Oyl in his Popeye adaptation, for no one has embodied a comic book character more thoroughly than Duvall.
In The Shining, it was well known that Stanley Kubrick pretty much ran her to the absolute limit to get the performance he wanted, bordering on mental abuse.
She had a ton of movies to her credit including Annie Hall, Roxanne, Time Bandits, Brewster McCloud, and a true classic: Suburban Commando.
She also had her own TV show on Showtime called Shelly Duvall’s Bedtime Stories which ran for 3 seasons.
Shelly had a unique pixie look with her enormous eyes and was quite pretty. In later years, she suffered from mental issues and had a heartbreaking appearance on the Dr. Phil show back in 2016, with many thinking she had a mental illness and was being exploited.
She was an underrated comedic actress. Watch Time Bandits as she appears as various different characters, she sometimes stole the show with Monty Python alum Michael Palin.
Of course her desperate portrayal as Wendy Torrance takes the cake, you could definitely feel her terror. It helps as if the stories are true, it wasn’t acting.
Here’s our look at Popeye I made a few years ago: