Shelley Duvall, The Shining Actress, Dead at 75
Actress Shelley Duvall, best remembered for her work in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, has died. She was 75.
As Duvall’s life partner, Dan Gilroy, told The Hollywood Reporter, she passed away 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,” Gilroy said in a statement to THR. “Fly away, beautiful Shelley.”
Throughout her career, Duvall collaborated many times with director and mentor Robert Altman, appearing in films such as Brewster McCloud (her first movie credit), Thieves Like Us (pictured above), 3 Women, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville and Popeye, where she played Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams’ titular sailor man.
But Duvall made perhaps her most lasting impression on pop culture in Kubrick’s 1980 take on The Shining, a film adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel. She memorably played Wendy Torrance, wife of Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance and victim of his reign of terror at the Overlook Hotel.
Duvall made several small-screen appearances over the years, with TV credits including The Twilight Zone, L.A. Law, The Hughleys and Wishbone. She also worked behind and in front of the camera to produce a variety of children’s programming, earning Primetime Emmy nominations for the children’s series Tall Tales & Legends and Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories.
After more than two decades away from acting, Duvall appeared in the 2023 horror flick The Forest Hills, which would ultimately become her final credit.
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