Shelley Duvall, famous for her role in The Shining, dies at the age of 75 in her home in Texas

Shelley Duvall, the intrepid Texas-born movie star whose wide-eyed, winning presence was a mainstay in the films of Robert Altman and who played a supporting role in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” has died. She was 75.

Duvall died in her sleep at home in Blanco, Texas, on Thursday, her longtime partner Dan Gilroy said. The cause of death was complications from diabetes, said her friend, publicist Gary Springer.

“My dear, sweet, wonderful life, partner and friend left us last night,” Gilroy said in a statement. “Too much suffering recently, now she is free. Fly away beautiful Shelley.”

Duvall was attending junior college in Texas when members of Altman’s crew discovered her at a party in Houston in 1970 while they were preparing to film “Brewster McCloud.” They introduced the 20-year-old to the director, who cast her in the role in “Brewster McCloud” and made her his protégé.

AP correspondent Margie Szaroleta reports on the death of actor Shelley Duvall.

Duvall later appeared in Altman films, including Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Popeye, Three Women and McCabe & Ms. Miller.

“He offers me damn good roles,” Duvall told the New York Times in 1977. “None of them were the same. He has great faith in me, trust and respect for me, and he doesn’t limit me or intimidate me, and I love him. I remember the first piece of advice he ever gave me: ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously.'”

Duvall, gaunt and awkward, was not a conventional Hollywood starlet. But she had a beguilingly open manner and exuded a unique naturalism. Film critic Pauline Kael called her the “female Buster Keaton.”

At her peak, Duvall was a regular star in some of the defining films of the 1970s. In The Shining (1980), she played Wendy Torrance, who watches in horror as her husband Jack (Jack Nicholson) goes mad while her family is isolated in the Overlook Hotel. It was Duvall’s screaming face that, along with Jack’s axe coming through the door, made up half of the film’s most iconic image.

Kubrick, a famous perfectionist, was notoriously hard on Duvall on The Shining. His methods of pushing her through countless takes in the most excruciating scenes took their toll on the actress. One scene was reportedly shot in 127 takes. The entire shoot took 13 months. Duvall said in a 1981 interview with People magazine that she cried “12 hours a day, for weeks” during production of the film.

“I’ll never give that much again,” Duvall said. “If you want to deal with pain and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.”

Duvall disappeared from the film world almost as quickly as she had appeared. In the 1990s, she began to retire from acting and withdrew from public life.

“How would you feel if people were really nice to you and then suddenly, in an instant, they turned against you?” Duvall told the Times earlier this year. “You would never believe it unless it happened to you. That’s why you’re hurt, because you can’t really believe it’s true.”

Duvall was born on July 7, 1949, in Fort Worth, Texas, the eldest of four children. Her father, Robert, was a cattle auctioneer before working as a lawyer, and her mother, Bobbie, was a real estate agent.

Duvall married artist Bernard Sampson in 1970. They divorced four years later. Duvall had a long-term relationship with musician Paul Simon in the late 1970s after they met while filming Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. (Duvall played the rock critic who keeps declaring things “transparent.”) She also dated Ringo Starr. While filming the 1990 Disney Channel film Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Roll, Duvall met musician Dan Gilroy of the group Breakfast Club, with whom she remained until her death.

Duvall’s performance in the 1970s was remarkably varied. She played mail-order bride Ida in the gritty western McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), a groupie in Nashville (1975), and Olive Oyl in Popeye (1980), opposite Robin Williams. Duvall played Millie Lammoreaux, an employee at a Palm Springs spa, in Three Women (alongside Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule), and won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival.

In the 1980s, Duvall produced and hosted numerous children’s television series, including “Faerie Tale Theatre,” “Tall Tales & Legends,” and “Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories.”

Duvall moved back to Texas in the mid-1990s. Around 2002, after filming the comedy Manna from Heaven, she retired from Hollywood completely. Her whereabouts became a favorite subject of Internet sleuths. One popular but false theory was that it was trauma from the grueling filming of The Shining. Another was that the damage to her home after the 1994 Northridge earthquake was the last straw.

To residents of the Texas Hill Country, where Duvall lived for about 30 years, she was neither “in hiding” nor a recluse. But her circumstances were a mystery to both the media and many of her old Hollywood friends. That changed in 2016, when producers of the show “Dr. Phil” tracked her down and aired a controversial hour-long interview in which she discussed her mental health struggles. “I’m very sick. I need help,” Duvall said on the show, which was widely criticized as exploitative.

“I found out the hard way what kind of person he is,” Duvall told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021.

THR journalist Seth Abramovitch wrote at the time that he had embarked on a pilgrimage to find her because “it didn’t feel right that McGraw’s callous sideshow should be the final word on her legacy.”

Duvall attempted to relaunch her career by attempting the indie horror film “The Forest Hills,” which was shot in 2022 and quietly premiered in early 2023.

“Acting again – it’s so much fun,” Duvall told People at the time. “It enriches your life.”