Shelley Duvall: one-off actress whose courage and vulnerability made her perfect for The Shining

A unique and versatile actress, Duvall’s career took off in the 1970s thanks to her raw, off-beat and sensitive portrayals of unconventional women.

With large expressive eyes and a big, slightly bucktoothed smile, she was few people’s idea of a conventionally beautiful Hollywood star. But Shelley Duvall, who died on July 11 at the age of 75, enjoyed a hugely successful career in film, and later as a producer of children’s television. For many of us she is best remembered for her starring role in Stanley Kubrick’s legendary horror film, The Shining (1980).

For the role of Wendy, the emotionally oppressed wife of the increasingly unstable writer Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, Duvall was Kubrick’s only serious consideration. He had seen all her films and greatly admired her work, but was convinced of her fit for the part after seeing her in Robert Altman’s strange and hypnotic dream film, 3 Women (1977).

Kubrick saw Duvall as perfectly embodying the kind of woman who remains married to a man like Jack Torrance – even though she knows he has brutally assaulted their son. The director understood that he couldn’t have someone ballsy like Jane Fonda playing the part, saying: “You need someone who is mousy and vulnerable.”

Kubrick told the French film critic Michel Ciment: “The wonderful thing about Shelley is her eccentric quality – the way she talks, the way she moves, the way her nervous system is put together. I think that most interesting actors have physical eccentricities about them which make their performances more interesting – and if they don’t, they work hard to find them.”

But Kubrick’s on-set treatment of Duvall has become the stuff of legend. She recalled how they were often at odds and he cut many of her lines. Kubrick responded that Duvall could not say them correctly, instructing her not to emphasise every line. One demanding scene – the staircase scene where Wendy fends off Jack with a baseball bat – was shot 127 times. “It was a difficult scene, but it turned out to be one of the best … in the film,” Duvall said afterwards. “We filmed that for about three weeks. Every day. It was very hard.”

Duvall later admitted that Kubrick “knew he was getting more out of me” by being tough. And indeed, the director elicited from Duvall a performance of anxious, hysterical strength that matched Nicholson’s depiction of Jack’s growing madness. In the end, Kubrick was delighted with Duvall’s performance.

Altman’s muse

It was an impressive performance from someone who got her start in the movies by accident. Born in 1949 in Fort Worth, Texas, Duvall was cast when she was asked at a party to take a part in Altman’s film Brewster McCloud which he was shooting on location in Houston in 1970. When she then flew to Los Angeles, it was the first time she had left Texas.

Altman clearly saw something special in Duvall. He seemed transfixed by her unaffected sweetness, recognising the potential in her unusual rawness. She went on to star in a slew of his films, including Nashville (1975), McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974), and Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976).

As Mildred “Millie” Lammoreaux in Altman’s psychological thriller 3 Women, she played a woman living in a dreary California desert town. Her performance in particular was critically acclaimed, and she shared the 1977 best actress award at Cannes.

That year Duvall also appeared as Pam, a Rolling Stone reporter who goes on a date with Woody Allen’s Alvy in Annie Hall and delivers one of the movie’s most memorable lines: “Sex with you is really a Kafka-esque experience.”

Little did Duvall know she would soon have another Kafka-esque experience acting under the direction of Kubrick. But she survived The Shining and went on to star as Olive Oyl in Altman’s film version of Popeye (1980), which showcased her skill in physical comedy. Indeed, there seemed such a fit between character and actor that Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert described Duvall as “born to play” Olive Oyl. The following year, she had fun with a small role as Pansy in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits.

In 1982, Duvall narrated, hosted and was executive producer of the children’s television programme Faerie Tale Theatre, leading to a two-decade career in the genre during which she starred in and produced a number of shows for US television.

But at the turn of the new century, the roles seem to dry up and she vanished from the Hollywood radar until 2016, when she turned up in a miserably exploitative appearance on US pop psychology show Dr Phil. Duvall, looking haggard, was semi-coherent and emotionally troubled, expanding the legend that Kubrick’s abusive behaviour had ruined her.

Despite both physical and mental health issues, she returned to the big screen in the 2023 horror The Forest Hills, and promoted it looking and sounding better than she had in years. But it was to be her last film.

Shelley Duvall should not be remembered as a victim, either in the role she played in The Shining or indeed as an actor or a woman. She emerged in Kubrick’s film as the survivor who outwits her murderous husband, and it is testimony to the strong roles she performed throughout her rich and varied career.

Nathan Abrams has received and receives funding from charities and research organisations.