Duvall RIP
By 
Shelley Duvall, the saucer-eyed, rail-thin waif who starred in seven films directed by her mentor, Robert Altman, and avoided the ax wielded by an unhinged Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, died Thursday. She was 75.
Duvall died in her sleep of complications from diabetes at her home in Blanco, Texas, Dan Gilroy, her life partner since 1989, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Duvall will always and unavoidably be remembered for the Shining, but she did much more with her career and had recently started to work again:
For more than two decades, Ms. Duvall’s career was at a standstill. Her last film role had come in 2002’s “Manna From Heaven,” after which she retired for reasons that have remained a mystery from a varied and, by most counts, successful career as both an actor and producer. Among the most common questions that show up when you search her name these days: What happened to Shelley Duvall? and Why did Shelley Duvall disappear?
This enduring curiosity is unsurprising: The very act of fading into obscurity, be it voluntary or forced, is at the heart of the “Hollywood recluse” trope, which is used to tragic effect in classic movies such as “Sunset Boulevard” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and never ceases to intrigue.
It intrigues Shelley Duvall as well.
“I was a star; I had leading roles,” she said, solemnly shaking her head. She had parked in the town square for a takeout lunch — chicken salad, quiche and sweetened iced coffee, finished off with a drag of a Parliament. She lowered her voice. “People think it’s just aging, but it’s not. It’s violence.”
Many actresses have this kind of late career gap. Not so many actors. Even in the Liberal Hollywood. Wonder why?