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Shelley Duvall, the girlishly bug-eyed, often portrayed as a neurotic, but whimsical actress has passed away at 75. Duvall received almost a dozen award nominations during her brief full-time career in Hollywood, including a Cannes actress award for Robert Altman’s 3 Women. Her legendary stamina against Stanley Kubrick’s brutal directing techniques made her a star in the now-classic The Shining.
Variety confirmed with her partner Dan Gilroy that the actress died today in Blanco, Texas, just three hours from her birth city of Fort Worth. Gilroy also confirmed with The Hollywood Reporter that Duvall died in her sleep of complications from diabetes.
“My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy said.
Duvall was known for working with director Altman, who cast her first on-screen in Brewster McCloud. She followed that by starring in McCabe & Mrs. Miller and alongside Keith Carradine in Thieves Like Us, before starring as part of the ensemble cast of Nashville in 1975. They would collaborate twice more with the aforementioned 3 Women, and Buffalo Bill and the Indians.
“He offers me damn good roles. None of them have been alike,” she said in 1977 on why she chose to keep working with Altman. “He has a great confidence in me, and a trust and respect for me, and he doesn’t put any restrictions on me or intimidate me, and I love him.”
Later in life, she would concentrate on children’s programming, even earning a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories. Duvall would provide voicework for Nickelodeon’s Aaahh! Real Monsters and appear in the popular PBS children’s show Wishbone.
