There are some actors who you recognize immediately. They are unique, iconic, and simply stand out because they have a magic about them that can’t be replicated. Sadly we lost one of these icons recently when the news was reported that Shelley Duvall had passed away at the age of 75. Duvall had gone out of the public eye for a number of years until quite recently. But with her passing the world lost an actress that was unique, talented, and brought to the screen a special sort of magic that’s hard to find. So in celebration of the life of Shelley Duvall, let’s take a look back on Whatever Happened to This Horror Star.
Shelley Duvall was born in 1949 in Blanco, Texas. Shelley was the oldest child of her parents Bobbie Ruth and Robert Duvall. Her other three siblings were all sons, Scott, Shane, and Stewart. I guess names starting with S were important. Shelley hadn’t gone to school for acting but actually majored in nutrition in college. She was discovered during a party in the early 70s by director Robert Alman. She’d had no other acting experience at the time other than some things in High School, but she was game to try and was cast in Brewster McCloud with Bud Cort. The movie is just as strange as you you’ve probably heard and Shelley and Bud Cort are a duo not to be missed. The film involves Brewster trying to fly, the police being a bunch of idiots, and someone committing murders in the Houston area. Bud Cort in this just makes me think of Where’s Waldo and I can’t think of why. The cast is impressive with Sally Kellerman, Margaret Hamilton, Rene Auberjonois, Michael Murphy and basically every 70s-character actor you could think of.
Her work on Brewster McCloud would lead to Duvall being cast in a number of films alongside other iconic actors with Altman coming back to work with her a few times over the years including the 1975 classic Nashville. She’d wind up hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live in 1977 as well as co-starring in Annie Hall. It would be the following decade though that would see Duvall take the role that would nearly define her career and place her in the pantheon of horror with what many consider one of the best horror films of all time. The Shining would introduce audiences to Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King unleashed on a big screen with a big budget. The story of an alcoholic writer who finds himself and his family staying alone over the closed season of a massive and possibly haunted (is it the demons of the hotel or the demons of Jack Torrance’s mind?) is a terrifying descent into madness and horror.
The Shining is a classic that to this day has it’s own sort of mythology and legacy. There’re still discussions as well full-on documentary films that discuss what the movie is actually about and all the things that are hidden within it. But one thing was abundantly clear and that was the shoot was a marathon for Duvall’s nerves. Kubrick would work Duvall to tears through the grueling year (yes, a full year) of shooting for the film. Stanley Kubrick was a known perfectionist and this would come through in multiple takes and editing. Wendy Torrence was, at least to me, one massive walking nerve of emotion who like to smoke but not really smoke (Wendy’s cigarette ash is almost as famous as the Twins.)
Over the course of the shoot Shelley Duvall would actually have her hair start falling out due to the massive stress she was put under. Her scenes were intense and required her to convey absolute hysterical terror. Besides the hair loss she’d actually become ill with exhaustion. Jack Nicholson himself would say years later that her role as Wendy was one of the hardest, he’d ever see anyone take on. An example would be the scene where Wendy would be threatening the now crazy Jack with a baseball bat. Duvall would have to shoot this scene 127 times. Years later Duvall would actually state that even with the issues with Kubrick and what she went through on the set she was glad for the experience. In her mind, Kubrick was singling her out for this treatment to really bring out the torment that a woman like Wendy had been through. Even before The Overlook, Wendy had already been through abuse at the hands of her husband and had seen that abuse happen to her son without any way of stopping it. When we as the audience come into the picture, we’re seeing Wendy already a the end of her rope. Duvall stated that the experience made her a better actor, but she’d never go through it again.
Duvall’s work as Wendy Torrence is more than a final girl, though she is in the end. She’s a real survivor not of just a supernatural force, but of an abusive relationship and toxic marriage. She saves herself and her son. It’s raw, emotional, and brutal in that realism that comes through on screen.
The same year The Shining was released, 1980, Duvall returned to director Robert Altman to create a cartoon come to life when she played Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams in the live action Popeye. While Popeye isn’t a horror film, the effects that turned Robin Williams into Popeye are sort of creepy (them arms, man…) The film was a musical and I will always remember Duvall’s singing “He’s Large.” Duvall with her thin and lanky frame and big eyes seemed genetically engineered to play the character. Popeye wasn’t a complete flop when it released, making three times its budget back but it was heavily panned by many. Today though it’s become a cult classic. The music was written by Harry Nilsson and the look of the film was based on the comic strips that the story of Popeye came from rather than the cartoons many were familiar with. The movie looks like the strip come to life and Williams and Duvall are literally the characters made real. It’s forgotten by a number of people that this was an early comic book adaptation and a musical one no less.
In 1981 Duvall would enter another fantasy world as Pansy, the unlucky lady who crosses paths with the thieves in Time Bandits. Duvall would actually be very unlucky during filming of the movie when director Terry Gilliam, to prove a point about a stunt involving Duvall who was supposed to have Michael Palin land NEXT to her during a shoot, climbed up and jumped off a scaffolding and landed ON the actress. Duvall was nearly paralyzed by the incident and wound-up having pain in her head and ears for weeks after.
In 1982 though, Shelley Duvall would help create one of the greatest things I think she ever did and something that would stick with me and a number of my fellow Gen X’rs with Fairy Tale Theater. Duvall looked like she’d walked out of a fairy tale herself and she had a natural sweetness and innocence that came across in her roles. Here, she would host a series of episodes based on classic Fairy Tales that would be acted by some of the biggest names of the day. Duvall herself would appear in a number of episodes not only as host but as characters. The series would run for 6 seasons and within these episodes were some really beautiful and terrifying stories. Here’s some standouts for me: The series retelling of Beauty and The Beast was actually a massive homage to Jean Cocteau’s film of the same name, to the point that the Beast (played by freaking Klaus Kinski) was redoing of the films make up. Many of the sets recreated the look of Cocteau’s film. Beauty was played by Susan Sarandon. The episode was actually directed by Roger Vadim. The Boy Who Left Home To Find Out About The Shivers tells a story about a boy who doesn’t know how to feel fear. This cast list is insane. Peter MacNicol, Dana Hill, Christopher Lee, David Warner, Frank Zappa…no really…and it’s all narrated by Vincent Price. Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp would, naturally, be the story of Aladdin. But this was directed by Tim Burton. Robert Carradine, James Earl Jones, Leonard Nimoy and Valerie Bertinelli would star.
I can’t tell you how much I loved this series. It was a great way to introduce kids to these stories in more depth and it had enough humor and star power that parents could watch along. It felt very Muppet Show in how there was just enough adult humor to keep things interesting. They were beautifully done.
Duvall would follow up Fairy Tale Theater in 1985 with Tall Tales and Legends. This would only last two seasons but would continue with the star power within episodes and behind the camera. Most of these are based on more North American fare when it came to the stories save for the Ponce De Leon and the Search for the Fountain of Youth episode (which had the late Dr. Ruth in the cast.) One of the standouts here was Johnny Appleseed which had Martin Short as the title character and would co-star Rob Reiner, Michael McKean and Molly Ringwald. The episode was directed by McKean’s Spinal Tap bandmate Christopher Guest. Duvall would star as Clemintine in the story Darlin Clemintine which would be narrated by Randy Newman. The Annie Oakley episode would star Jamie Lee Curtis as the title character alongside Brian Dennehy and Cliff DeYoung.
Duvall would continue working steadily through the 80s and would team up with that young Tim Burton guy for a short film called Frankenweenie as the mother of the young boy whose dog is killed and resurrected. It’s ironic that Disney fired Burton after this project was made as they felt it wasn’t family friendly enough. Nearly 30 years later, Disney would make a stop motion film adaptation of it with Burton directing and producing.
Towards the end of the decade Shelley Duvall made yet another of my favorite things (that I only wished there were more of) with Nightmare Classics. This, as well as Fairy Tale Theater and Tall Tales and Legends would be part of the Showtime network. These weren’t as family friendly as the first two series and were for more mature, teenage audiences as these were unabashed horror stories. Yet again, these had a number of name actors in the roles. While there were only four episodes made, these were longer and basically feature length telling’s of classic horror stories. The first episode was The Turn of the Screw and would star Amy Iring, David Hemmings, and Balthazar Getty. The next was Carmilla, the female vampire story which would inspire Dracula. This would have Ione Skye, Meg Tilly, Roy Dotrice and Roddy McDowall. The third entry would be The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde…and I’m not going to lie, this is probably my favorite because Anthony Andrews rules in the lead role. It would co-star Nicholas Guest, Laura Dern and Rue McClanahan. The final episode was The Eyes of the Panther which is a western werewolf story from the late 1800’s. This would star John Stockwell, C Thomas Howell and Daphne Zuniga. While you can find most of these uploaded on YouTube, no DVD release has ever been done as opposed to Fairy Tale Theater. Each of the episodes of Nightmare Classics did get a VHS release though.
In the 90s Duvall would continue championing Fairy Tales with works like Mother Goose Rock N Rhyme and Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories. She’d take roles in feature films and television through the decade and would co-star in Casper Meets Wendy, the direct to video follow up to the live action Casper film. She’s also appear alongside Christopher Lee, Sean Pertwee and Jason Scott Lee in Russell Mulcahy’s Tale of the Mummy. She’d also co-star in the teen horror comedy Boltneck which would have not only Richard Moll and Matthew Lawrence in the cast but a guy by the name of Ryan Reynolds is in fact…Boltneck. If the name Boltneck didn’t give it away, this was a redo of the Frankenstein story but with a lot more comedy…and a lot more Ryan Reynolds.
It was in the 2000’s that Duvall made an exit from public life. During production of Mother Goose Rock N Ryme she began a relationship with musician Dan Gilroy which would continue until her death. An earthquake scare in the 90s and her brother’s cancer diagnosis led to Shelley leaving California and heading back to her home state of Texas.
Shelley would be interviewed by Doctor Phil in an infamous piece of exploitative tabloid TV. Duvall had had issues with mental health over the years and in this interview in 2016 many felt Doctor Phil should have just not aired any of it. Friends and fans were scared for Duvall’s well-being. Following the interview Duvall herself even said it was a mistake and she should have listened to Gilroy who told her not to do it.
It would be 21 years since her last acting role, but Shelley would be a part of an independent horror film shot in 2023 called The Forest Hills in the role of Mama. The film, which sadly was her last, will be released October of this year. It co-stars Edward Furlong, Dee Wallace, Stacey Nelkin, and Felissa Rose. The films story focuses on a man tormented with visions of murder and possibly being a werewolf.
Duvall did one or two more interviews before her passing which showed her as a woman who was kind, private, and with a treasure trove of stories to share from a career that touched many. She was singer, an actress, a writer and to many an inspiration.
To me, Shelley Duvall was a story sharer who wanted to bring to everyone the magic of tales and legends. To show the light and the dark side of stories, for both young and old. She was a final girl who fought. She was a host to guide us through the Grimm’s brothers collection and the nightmare wing of the library. And she was a person who deserves respect and appreciation for what she gave us.
So thank you, Shelley Duvall. Your stories will keep going.
