Oh no, we lost a legend! Shelley Duvall, the unforgettable face from ‘The Shining’, has passed away at the age of 75.
Her longtime partner, Dan Gilroy, with whom she has been since 1989, shared the sad news. “My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Shelley died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Blanco, Texas due to complications with diabetes.
Duvall stole our hearts in the 1980 thriller ‘The Shining’, playing the terrified Wendy Torrance opposite Jack Nicholson’s unsettling Jack Torrance at the eerie Overlook Hotel. As the supernatural chaos unfolded, her portrayal became iconic.
Behind the scenes, Duvall faced her own challenges, especially with the demanding director Stanley Kubrick, who wouldn’t settle for anything less than the perfect take. “He said I was great at crying,” Duvall recalled about how Kubrick convinced her to take the role.
“[Kubrick] doesn’t print anything until at least the 35th take. Thirty-five takes, running and crying and carrying a little boy, it gets hard,” she explained. “And full performance from the first rehearsal. That’s difficult.”
But it was the emotional toll that was the hardest part: “But after a while, your body rebels. It says: ‘Stop doing this to me. I don’t want to cry every day.’ And sometimes just that thought alone would make me cry. To wake up on a Monday morning so early and realize that you had to cry all day because it was scheduled — I would just start crying. I’d be like, ‘Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.’ And yet I did it. I don’t know how I did it.”
“Jack [Nicholson] said that to me, too. He said, ‘I don’t know how you do it.'”
Duvall’s talent was recognized well before ‘The Shining’, earning a BAFTA nomination and a Best Actress award at Cannes for her role in ‘3 Women’.
Despite her success, the spotlight took its toll, leading to her early retirement in 2002 after her last film, ‘Manna From Heaven’. “I was a star; I had leading roles,” she shared with The New York Times. “People think it’s just aging, but it’s not. It’s violence.”
Reflecting on her career and its abrupt end, she said: “How would you feel if people were really nice, and then, suddenly, on a dime, they turn on you? You would never believe it unless it happens to you. That’s why you get hurt, because you can’t really believe it’s true.”
Shelley Duvall’s passing came just days after her 75th birthday, marking the end of an era for her fans and the film community. She will be missed but her legacy through her films remains immortal.