Shelley Duvall, star of The Shining, has died

Shelley Duvallthe doe-eyed, rail-thin actress who starred in seven films directed by her mentor, Robert Altmanand avoided the axe blow wielded by a madman Jack Nicholson in The glow of Stanley Kubrickdied on Thursday. He was 75.

Duvall died in his sleep from complications of diabetes at his home in Blanco, Texas, he said Dan Gilroyhis life partner since 1989, told The Hollywood Reporter.

“My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend has left us. She has been through so much lately, she is now free. Fly away beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy said.

Shelley Duvall’s career

Before fleeing Hollywood for her native Texas in the mid-1990s, Duvall enjoyed a thriving career as a versatile and unique actress and head of her own production company, Think Entertainment, which created innovative, star-studded children’s programming for cable television that earned her two Emmy Award nominations.

While attending college in her hometown of Houston, Duvall was discovered by members of Altman’s staff and persuaded to submit to a screen test. She then made her screen debut as the seductive teenager and Astrodome tour guide Suzanne Davis in Brewster McCloud (1970).

A decade later, Duvall sang and starred alongside Robin Williams as the iconic comic book character Olive Oyl, the strong-willed damsel in distress, in Altman’s live-action adaptation of Popeye.

Meanwhile, the child star collaborated with Altman as a mail-order bride in McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971); as the woman who has an affair with Mississippi bank robber Keith Carradine in Thieves Like Us (1974); as the groupie L.A. Joan, fond of shorts and platform shoes, in Nashville (1975); as President Grover Cleveland’s wife in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976); and as Millie Lamoureaux, a fantasizing attendant at a Palm Springs health spa for the elderly, in 3 Women (1977).

She won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as Millie.

Memorable every time she appeared on screen, Duvall also played a rock journalist in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977); appeared as Pansy in funny scenes with Michael Palin in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits (1981); and played Steve Martin’s supportive friend Dixie in Roxanne (1987).

She returned to acting in 2022 after a two-decade absence with a role in The Forest Hills.

Shelley Duvall’s terrifying experience on the set of The Shining

Duvall said that for the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, she was tested during the 13 months of filming in England. In the horror classic, she plays beleaguered wife Wendy Torrance, who spends a harsh winter at the desolate Overlook Hotel with her writer husband (Nicholson), who is slowly going mad, and their young son (Danny Lloyd).

Kubrick made her “cry 12 hours a day for weeks on end,” she said in a 1981 interview with People magazine. “I’ll never give that much again. If you want to get into pain and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.”

One report claims she was forced to perform her iconic baseball bat scene a grueling total of 127 times.