The Shining actress Shelley Duvall dies at the age of 75
The Shining actress Shelley Duvall has passed away at the age of 75.
She was best known for starring in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film alongside three-time Oscar winner Jack Nicholson, playing his wife.
The most memorable scene was Nicholson’s character tormenting Duvall’s with a baseball bat, which reportedly required 127 takes in a 13-month shoot.
Duvall's portrayal of distinctive and eccentric characters made her a famous movie star in the late 70s and 80s, going on to win the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for 1977 drama 3 Women.
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Dan Gilroy, her life partner since 1989, told The Hollywood Reporter that the actress died in her sleep of complications from diabetes in her Texas home.
“My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” Gilroy said.
In 2016, Duvall told Dr. Phil: “I am very sick. I need help.”
Her fans have taken to social media to pay tribute, as one person tweeted: "So long Shelley Duvall.
"What made her special was not just how versatile she was, but she was unlike any of her contemporaries.
"She simply made you fall in love with Olive Oyl."
A second wrote: "Shelley Duvall lit up the screen – every film she was in was brighter for her presence, and yet the industry (and life) were frequently so cruel to her.
"I'm sad she's died, but glad she was living a good life in her final years by all accounts. "There won't be another like her."
"I honestly feel so heartbroken. Shelley Duvall made me fall in love with watching actors transform on screen. Truly no one like her, we lost an icon," penned a third.
Another thanked her for 'making cinema a better place', adding: "What terrible news to wake up to.
"Shelley Duvall, you were one of a kind. A bold and original talent who gave countless iconic performances in a variety of movies, particularly Three Women and The Shining."
"Farewell to the one & only Shelley Duvall, a girlishly bug-eyed, wise, neurotic, sylph-like presence in motion pictures," someone else said.
"Her work with Robert Altman, particularly 3 Women, is some of the defining stuff of that weird and glorious era where women like her got to be movie stars."
Duvall worked with director Robert Altman seven times in the likes of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974) and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976).
Anish Vij