Shelley Duvall's life in pictures: From The Shining to her final days
Hollywood legend Shelley Duvall has died aged 75, leaving behind an incredible legacy and life story.
Best known for her striking portrayal of Wendy Torrance in the 1980 horror classic, The Shining, Duvall left Hollywood in the '90s and gave up acting entirely in the early 2000s.
Keep reading to learn how she rose to fame after a chance meeting at a party in Texas, and what made her decide to give it all up and go home.
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Born on July 7, 1949, Shelley Alexis Duvall was the first child and only daughter of cattle auctioneer-turned-lawyer Robert Richardson "Bobby" Duvall and real estate broker Bobbie Ruth Crawford.
Duvall grew up moving around Texas with her parents and three younger brothers before the family settled in Houston when she was five.
"I was practically a parent to my brothers," she told the LA Times in 1991.
"I was the eldest child, the responsible one. So probably somewhere in what I do is an opportunity for me to have a childhood."
Her parents picked up on her creative flair from a young age and even nicknamed her 'Manic Mouse', but as a teen Duvall was more interested in science than acting and hoped to one day become a scientist.
Little did she know stardom was waiting for her.
Duvall graduated from Waltrip High School in 1967 and went on to study nutrition and diet therapy at college while holding down a job at a local cosmetics store.
In 1970, she attended a party with her then-fiance Bernard Sampson, who was an artist. There, she bumped into legendary American director, screenwriter and producer Robert Altman, who was in town filming Brewster McCloud.
He was immediately taken with Duvall's striking features and charming, upbeat personality and invited her to star in the film as the love interest.
The 20-year-old student was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed to fly to Hollywood for a screen test.
"I got tired of arguing, and thought maybe I am an actress. They told me to come. I simply got on a plane and did it. I was swept away," she told the Boca Raton News in 1977.
So began her Hollywood career.
Duvall was immediately offered a five-year, three-picture contract, which included Brewster McCloud.
She and Altman (pictured) became a Hollywood power duo, with the prolific director casting Duvall in one film after the next; she did his flick McCabe & Mrs. Miller in 1971, then Thieves Like Us in 1974, and finally found her breakthrough role with Nashville in 1975, where she played a groupie.
In 1976 she starred in Altman's Western Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, then worked with a different director for the film Bernice Bobs Her Hair.
In front of the camera, Duvall was thriving. Behind the scenes, it was a very different story.
Duvall had married artist Bernard Sampson in 1970 but their relationship "just dissipated" as her acting career took off. They ended up divorcing in 1974.
The split put serious financial strain on the young actress, who was still finding her feet in Hollywood.
"You didn't get paid much – just scale plus 10 per cent," she told People in the 2020s.
"They thought women would just marry and the husband's going to support them. But that doesn't happen for everybody."
She also longed for a happy family life that could sit alongside her film career, which she sadly hadn't found with Sampson.
"I want to be happy, to have something to care about in life – a family, a love, a career, a sense of accomplishment," she said in 1977.
That turned out to be the same year Altman cast Duvall in her biggest and most successful role yet.
In 1977, Altman cast Duvall in the leading role for his psychological thriller 3 Women.
Duvall improvised many of her lines in the film and the strategy clearly worked, as she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the film.
Suddenly, the whole world knew Duvall had the makings of a Hollywood great –she just had to keep up the momentum.
As Duvall posed for photographers at the 30th Cannes Film Festival in 1977, it looked like she was about to be the next 'It Girl' of the silver screen – even if her paycheck didn't quite match up to expectations.
"I'd like to make more money," she told the Boca Raton News in 1977.
"I don't want all that much, but I like to surround myself with colours I love, with an atmosphere that makes me feel calm, and it takes money to do these things."
Duvall just wasn't making much money and her personal life went through a series of ups and downs over the following years.
Despite being one of the most striking women in Hollywood in the 1970s, Duvall was unlucky in love.
She met singer-songwriter Paul Simon in 1976, while she was filming Annie Hall, and began a romance that quickly turned serious.
"He was just so funny and intelligent and charming," Duvall said in 1991, but Simon took issue with her youthful style.
"I started losing confidence, so I went out and spent way too much money on clothes ... I felt lost, bored, depressed."
The couple had been living together for two years when Duvall introduced Simon to her friend Carrie Fisher. Not long after, Simon left Duvall and started dating the Star Wars star instead.
He allegedly broke up with her at the airport as she was about to board a flight to London to start filming what would become the biggest movie of her entire career.
Though the film was a box-office success and later became one of the most iconic horror flicks of all time, Duvall was a wreck during filming.
She claimed director Kubrick was harsh and demanded an incredibly emotional performance from her, which took a toll on her mental and physical health.
"It's the most difficult role I've ever had to play," Duval said in the book The Complete Kubrick.
"From May until October, I was really in and out of ill health because the stress of the role was so great. Stanley pushed me and prodded me further than I've ever been pushed before."
Duvall's next biggest film, Popeye, released the same year as The Shining and the production was much easier on her.
Directed by Altman, the film co-starred Robin Williams and was shot in sunny Malta, where Duvall was able to escape into the character of Olive Oyl.
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote of her performance: "Shelley Duvall is like a precious piece of china with a tinkling personality.
"She looks and sounds like almost nobody else, and if it is true that she was born to play the character Olive Oyl (and does so in Altman's new musical Popeye), it is also true that she has possibly played more really different kinds of characters than almost any other young actress of the 1970s."
It was a career high the likes of which she would never experience again.
