Early life and career

Shelley Alexis Duvall was born on July 7, 1949 in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Bobbie Ruth Crawford and Robert Richardson "Bobby" Duvall (1919-1995), a lawyer (not to be confused with fellow actor Robert Duvall). Duvall has three brothers; Scott, Shane, and Stewart.

Career

After leaving school, Duvall sold cosmetics at Foley's and attended South Texas Junior College, where she majored in Nutrition and Diet Therapy. She met Robert Altman when he was shooting his forthcoming film Brewster McCloud (1970) on location. He offered Duvall a part in the film. She said, "I got tired of arguing, and thought maybe I am an actress. They told me to come. I simply got on a plane and did it. I was swept away." Duvall had never left Texas before Altman offered her a film role. She flew to Hollywood and landed the role of a free-spirited love interest to Bud Cort's reclusive Brewster in Brewster McCloud.

1970s

Altman chose Duvall for roles as an unsatisfied mail-order bride in McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), the daughter of a convict and mistress to Keith Carradine's character in Thieves Like Us (1974), a spaced-out groupie in Nashville (1975), and a sympathetic Wild West woman in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976).

The same year, Duvall left Altman to star as Bernice, a wealthy girl from Wisconsin in PBS’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair. She also hosted an evening of Saturday Night Live and appeared in 5 sketches: "Programming Change," "Video Vixens," "Night of the Moonies," "Van Arguments," and "Goodnights."

In 1977, Duvall starred as Mildred "Millie" Lammoreaux in Altman's 3 Women. Duvall's performance garnered the award for Best Actress at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival and the LAFCA Award for Best Actress. She appeared in a minor role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977).

1980s

Duvall's next role was Wendy Torrance in The Shining (1980) directed by Stanley Kubrick. Jack Nicholson states in the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures that Kubrick was great to work with but that he was "a different director" with Duvall. Because of Kubrick's methodical nature, principal photography took a year to complete. Kubrick and Duvall argued frequently, although Duvall later said she learned more from working with Kubrick on The Shining than she did on all her earlier films. In order to give The Shining the psychological horror it needed, director Stanley Kubrick antagonized his actors. The film’s script was changed so often that Nicholson stopped reading each draft. Kubrick intentionally isolated Duvall and argued with her often. Duvall was forced to perform the iconic and exhausting baseball bat scene 127 times. Afterwards, Duvall presented Kubrick with clumps of hair that had fallen out due to the extreme stress of filming.

While Duvall was in London shooting The Shining, Altman asked her to play Olive Oyl in his big-screen adaptation of Popeye opposite Robin Williams, a role Roger Ebert believes she was born to play:

"Shelley Duvall is a like a precious piece of china with a tinkling personality. She looks and sounds like almost nobody else, and if it is true that she was born to play the character Olive Oyl (and does so in Altman's new musical "Popeye"), it is also true that she has possibly played more really different kinds of characters than almost any other young actress of the 1970s."

Her role of Pansy in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits (1981) followed. In 1982, Duvall narrated, hosted and was executive producer of the children's television program Faerie Tale Theatre. She starred in seven episodes of the series; "Rumpelstiltskin" (1983), "Rapunzel" (1983), "The Nightingale" (1983), "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1984), "Puss in Boots" (1985), and "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" (1986). Since the program's first episode "The Frog Prince", which starred Robin Williams and Teri Garr, Duvall has produced 27 hour-long episodes of the program. In 1985, she created Tall Tales & Legends, another one-hour anthology series for Showtime, which featured adaptations of American folk tales. As with Faerie Tale Theatre, the series starred well-known Hollywood actors with Duvall as host, executive producer, and occasional guest star. The series ran for just nine episodes yet garnered Duvall an Emmy nomination.

While Duvall was producing Faerie Tale Theatre, it was reported that she was to star as the lead in the film adaptation of Tom Robbins’s Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which starred Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, her sister Cindy, and Sissy Spacek. The project was delayed, and when it released in 1993 it starred an entirely different cast. She also landed roles in films and television series: the mother of a boy whose dog is struck by car in Tim Burton's short film Frankenweenie (1984), a lonely and timid woman who receives a message from a flying saucer in The Twilight Zone episode "The Once and Future King/A Saucer of Loneliness", and the friend of Steve Martin's character in the comedy Roxanne (1987).

In 1988, Duvall founded a new production company called Think Entertainment to develop programs and television movies for cable channels. She created Nightmare Classics (1989), a third Showtime anthology series that featured adaptations of well-known horror stories by authors including Edgar Allan Poe. Unlike the previous two series, Nightmare Classics was aimed at a teenage and adult audience. It was the least successful series that Duvall produced for Showtime and ran for only four episodes.

1990s

In 1991, Duvall portrayed Jenny Wilcox, wife of Charlie Wilcox (Christopher Lloyd) in the Hulk Hogan action-adventure film Suburban Commando. In October that year, Duvall released two compact discs, Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall... Sweet Dreams that features Duvall singing lullaby songs and Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall... Merry Christmas, on which Duvall sings Christmas songs.

The following year, Think Entertainment joined the newly formed Universal Family Entertainment to create Duvall's fourth Showtime original series, Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories, which featured animated adaptations of children's storybooks with celebrity narrators and garnered her a second Emmy nomination. Duvall produced a fifth series for Showtime, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, before selling Think Entertainment in 1993 and retiring as a producer. Duvall's production work has gained her six CableACE Awards and one Peabody Award. A year later, Duvall landed a guest spot on the television series L.A. Law as Margo Stanton, a show dog owner and breeder who presses charges against the owner of a Welsh Corgi that mated with her prize-winning Afghan Hound.

She appeared as the vain, over-friendly, but harmless Countess Gemini—sister to the calculating Gilbert Osmond (John Malkovich)—in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of the Henry James novel The Portrait of a Lady. A year later, she played a beatific nun in the comedy film Changing Habits and a besotted, murderous, ostrich-farm owner in Guy Maddin's fourth feature Twilight of the Ice Nymphs. The same year she played Chris Cooper's character's gullible wife who yearns for a better life in Horton Foote's made-for-television film, Alone. Duvall continued to make film and television appearances throughout the late-1990s. In 1998, she played Drew Barrymore's mother in the comedy Home Fries and Hilary Duff's aunt in the direct-to-video children's film Casper Meets Wendy. Near the end of the decade she returned to the horror genre with Tale of the Mummy (1998) and The 4th Floor (1999).

2000s

In the 2000s, Duvall accepted minor roles, including the mother of Matthew Lawrence's character in the horror-comedy Boltneck and Haylie Duff's aunt in the independent family film Dreams in the Attic, which was sold to the Disney Channel but was never released. Her most recent acting appearance was a small role in the 2002 independent film Manna from Heaven.

Personal life

Duvall was married to artist Bernard Sampson between 1970 and 1974; the couple divorced as Duvall's acting career accelerated.

While she was shooting in New York for her part in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), she met singer/songwriter Paul Simon. They lived together for two years and their relationship ended when Duvall introduced Simon to her friend, actress Carrie Fisher; Fisher took up with Simon.

Shortly before the release of Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, it was reported that Duvall and actor Stanley Wilson (who portrayed the town barber in Popeye) were set to marry. However, no further reports were released regarding this.

Duvall has always been an animal lover, caring for and incorporating many of her favorite pets into original children's stories and songs. In the 1980s and 1990s, she lived in Benedict Canyon in California with several pets.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1970	Brewster McCloud	Suzanne Davis
1971	McCabe & Mrs. Miller	Ida Coyle
1974	Thieves Like Us	Keechie
1975	Nashville	L. A. Joan
1976	Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson	Mrs. Grover Cleveland
1976	Bernice Bobs Her Hair	Bernice	Television film
1977	Annie Hall	Pam
1977	3 Women	Millie Lammoreaux
1980	The Shining	Wendy Torrance
1980	Popeye	Olive Oyl
1981	Time Bandits	Pansy
1984	Frankenweenie	Susan Frankenstein	Short film
1984	Booker	Laura	Short film
1986	Popples		Television film Executive Producer
1987	Roxanne	Dixie
1987	Frog	Annie Anderson	Television film Executive Producer
1990	Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme	Little Bo Peep	Television film
1991	Suburban Commando	Jenny Wilcox
1991	Frogs!	Annie Anderson	Television film
1991	Stories from Growing up		Television film Executive Producer
1991	Backfield in Motion		Television film Executive Producer
1995	The Underneath	Nurse
1996	The Portrait of a Lady	Countess Gemini
1997	RocketMan	Mrs. Randall	Uncredited
1997	Twilight of the Ice Nymphs	Amelia Glahn
1997	Alone	Estelle	Television film
1997	Changing Habits	Sister Agatha
1997	My Teacher Ate My Homework	Mrs. Fink
1998	Home Fries	Mrs. Jackson
1998	Casper Meets Wendy	Gabby	Direct-to-video
1998	Tale of the Mummy	Edith Butros
1999	The 4th Floor	Martha Stewart
1999	Boltneck	Mrs. Stein
2000	Dreams in the Attic	Nellie
2002	Manna from Heaven	Detective Dubrinski

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1973	Cannon	Liz Christie	Episode: "The Seventh Grave"
1973	Love, American Style	Bonnie Lee	Episode: "Love and the Mr. and Mrs.
1976	Baretta	Aggie	Episode: "Aggie"
1982-1987	Faerie Tale Theatre	Host/Various roles	Creator, Executive Producer
1985-1987	Tall Tales & Legends	Host/Various roles	Creator, Executive Producer
1986	The Twilight Zone	Margaret	Episode: "A Saucer of Loneliness"
1989	Nightmare Classics		Creator, Executive Producer
1990	Rockin' Through the Decades	Herself	Television special
1992	The Ray Bradbury Theatre	Leota Bean	Episode: "The Tombstone"
1992-1993	Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories	Host/Various roles	Creator, Executive Producer, Writer
1994	Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle		Creator, Executive Producer
1994	L.A. Law	Margo Stanton	Episode: "Tunnel of Love"
1995	Frasier	Caroline (voice)	Episode: "Dark Victory"
1997	The Adventures of Shirley Holmes	Alicia Fett	Episode: "The Case of the Wannabe Witch"
1997	Adventures from the Book of Virtues	Fairy (voice)	Episode: "Perseverance"
1997	Aaahh!!! Real Monsters	Ocka (voice)	Episode: "Oblina Without a Cause"
1998	Maggie Winters	Muriel	Episode: "Dinner at Rachel's"
1999	Wishbone	Renee Lassiter	Episode: "Groomed for Greatness"
1999	The Hughleys	Mrs. Crump	Episode: "Storm o' the Century"

Discography

• Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall...Merry Christmas (1991)
• Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall...Sweet Dreams (1991)

Awards and nominations

Year	Work	Award	Category	Result
1977	3 Women	LAFCA Award	Best Actress	Won
		Cannes Film Festival	Best Actress	Won
		NSFC Award	Best Actress	Nominated
		NYFCC Award	Best Actress	Nominated
1978		BAFTA Award	Best Actress	Nominated
1981	The Shining	Razzie Award	Worst Actress	Nominated
1984	Faerie Tale Theatre	Peabody Award		Won
1988	Tall Tales & Legends	Emmy Award	Outstanding Children's Program	Nominated
1992	Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories	Emmy Award	Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)	Nominated
1998	The Adventures of Shirley Holmes	Gemini Award	Best Performance by an Actress in a Guest Role Dramatic Series	Nominated

[ Source: Wikipedia ]