Former Hollywood leading lady Shelley Duvall has died at the age of 75, following complications from diabetes.
Duvall, who was best known for her role in Stanley Kubrick’s horror film The Shining – released in 1980 – had been receiving hospice care for months according to her partner.
Dan Gilroy, member of the band The Breakfast Club, had been in a relationship with Duvall since 1989 and announced her death in a statement.
“My dear, sweet, wonderful life, partner, and friend left us last night,” he said.
“Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley.”
He later told NBC News he “can’t tell you how much I miss her.”
Duvall starred in almost 30 films over the course of her career and had a number of television credits to her name as well, however it was her role in The Shining that had a lasting impact on audiences.
The actress portrayed Wendy Torrance, who ends up being tormented by her axe-wielding husband Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, including a scene where he breaks through a door before uttering the iconic line: “Here’s Johnny.”
Duvall would go on to speak at length about her experiences on the set of the film, claiming she endured a difficult time working on it.
The filming process took more than a year with director Kubrick who was known as a perfectionist, having a particularly intense scene shot 127 times.
Kubrick was also accused of torturing his actors on the set, with reports Duvall lost hair due to the stress of the production.
“Going through day after day of excruciating work was almost unbearable,” she told Rolling Stone after the film’s release.
“Jack Nicholson’s character had to be crazy and angry all the time. And in my character, I had to cry 12 hours a day, all day long, the last nine months straight, five or six days a week.”
Duvall was also known for roles in Annie Hall (1977), Popeye (1980) and Time Bandits (1981).
She expanded into production in the 1980s where she won a Peabody Award for Faerie Tale Theatre.
As she moved back home to Texas in the 1990s, Duvall appeared in less film and television before ditching Hollywood completely after starring in Manna from Heaven in 2002.
She went on to make a film return in last year’s The Forest Hills, which ended up being her last piece of work.
American actor Wendell Pierce was one of the first to pay tribute to Duvall, sharing a post on X.
“When I was a boy, I went to the movies to see POPEYE with Robin Williams. A wonderfully strange movie. The moment Shelley Duvall sang “He’s Large” I fell in love with “Olive Oil”. A moment I cherish to this day as a part of my innocent youth. Today Shelley Duvall died and that little boy shed a tear for “Olive Oil” with a heavy heart. RIP,” he wrote.
English filmmaker and actor Edgar Wright said Duvall was “truly iconic” and “burned up the screen in many funny, intense and idiosyncratic roles.”
“I especially loved her in ‘McCabe & Mrs Miller’, ‘Thieves Like Us’, ‘Nashville’, the extraordinary ‘Three Women’, ‘Annie Hall’, ‘Time Bandits’, ‘Roxanne’, her Olive Oyl in ‘Popeye’… and, of course, her fierce, unforgettable performance as Wendy Torrance in ‘The Shining,” he posted on X.
“Whatever horrors are conjured up in that film, its power stands and falls on Duvall’s terrified reactions. What an incredible screen presence she was.”