Shelley Duvall has died of complications from diabetes. She was 75.
“My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” her longtime partner, “Breakfast Club” musician Dan Gilroy, 77, said to The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday.
Duvall had a long and storied career, but her most iconic role was of the wide-eyed screaming waif Wendy Torrance in the classic 1980 horror movie “The Shining” alongside Jack Nicholson. It’s frequently rumored that director Stanley Kubrick “terrorized” Duvall during filming. But the backstory is perhaps a bit more complicated.
In a 2001 interview, Duvall said, “I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Why? Because of Stanley. And it was a fascinating learning experience. It was such intense work that I think it makes you smarter.”
However, she gave conflicting remarks in a controversial 2016 interview with Dr. Phil, saying “that film was hell to be a part of,” describing Kubrick as having “done everything with force and cruelty.”
That interview and Duvall’s remarks in it were later called into question, as Duvall noted she had mental health issues at the time. Vivian Kubrick, Stanley’s daughter, made a statement on Twitter blasting Dr. Phil for being “appallingly cruel.”
In 2021, Duvall told The Hollywood Reporter that she “found out the kind of person he is the hard way,” referring to Dr. Phil, adding, that people in her life told her, “You shouldn’t have done that, Shelley.’”
Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, “The Shining” follows writer Jack Torrance (Nicholson), his wife, Wendy (Duvall), and their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd).
When Jack takes a caretaker position at the remote Overlook Hotel, which has a bloody history and closes every winter, his family comes with him. Soon, Jack’s mental health spirals – and in a famous scene in the climax, he chases a hysterical Wendy with an ax, memorably shouting, “Here’s Johnny!”
In another famous scene, she’s forced to use a bat to knock him down a staircase.
Anjelica Huston, who was dating Nicholson at the time, told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021, “I got the feeling, certainly through what Jack was saying at the time, that Shelley was having a hard time just dealing with the emotional content of the piece. And they didn’t seem to be all that sympathetic. It seemed to be a little bit like the boys were ganging up.”
The actress added, “That might have been completely my misread on the situation, but I just felt it. And when I saw her during those days, she seemed generally a bit tortured, shook up. I don’t think anyone was being particularly careful of her.”
According to The Mirror, Kubrick instructed the cast and crew to isolate the then-31-year-old Duvall, to make her stress and exhaustion more authentic.
In the documentary “Kubrick: A Life in Pictures,” Nicholson, 87, claimed that Kubrick was “difficult” with Duvall, berating her in front of the cast and crew and punishing her for errors.
“[She had] the toughest job of any actor I’ve seen,” Nicholson said.
It’s been rumored that Duvall had to film 127 takes of that staircase scene, which pushed her to a breaking point.
Director Lee Unkrich, who wrote the book “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining,” told Indiewire in 2023 that he found during his research that this is a Hollywood myth.
“Kubrick sometimes did a lot of takes, sure…But that wasn’t the norm. I mean, I have all shot logs for the entire movie. So I know how many takes were done on every shot. “
He noted that the famous staircase scene is even in “The Guinness Book of World Records” for the largest number of takes, citing that number of “127.”
“And it’s completely not true… there were no more than 15 takes for any one set-up/shot,” he said.
He added, “It was reported by a crew member who wasn’t even on the set when it was shot.”
Unkrich claimed that a lot of stories about the making of “The Shining” are “incorrect or exaggerated,” including Kubrick’s “abusive” treatment of Duvall.
“The story of Shelley Duvall and her supposed mistreatment on the set has become more and more exaggerated over the years to the point where that’s all discussed as if it was this extremely abusive situation, which it just wasn’t,” he said.
He added about Duvall’s esteem for Kubrick: “She loved him. She thinks he got a great performance out of her. She didn’t always agree with his methods. She will admit it was an extremely difficult part to play, but these stories of abuse, which are bad for lots of people involved, are just completely unfair.”
In a 2016 interview on ComingSoon.net, Duvall said, “Stanley really gets a bad reputation sometimes but he was a perfectionist. We had our moments when we laughed and joked around on set, but then there were times that we just exploded at each other!”
She clarified that she is a “very stubborn person” and doesn’t “like being bossed around and told what to do.”
“Stanley pushed and pushed to get the performance out of me that he wanted,” she explained.
Duvall noted that the script wasn’t specific enough for her to understand Wendy’s mental state, and she and Kubrick disagreed about what it should be.
“I played it out as a battered but loving housewife who supports her husband through all the sh-t in their marriage. Stanley wanted a tough, strong, independent woman,” she said. “The way all my scenes worked out you see all those emotions in my character. What I thought my character should be and what he thought my character should be rolled into one. It was a hell of a shoot but he got what he wanted out of me!”
In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Duvall called Kubrick, who died at age 70 in 1999, “very warm and friendly.”
“He spent a lot of time with Jack and me. He just wanted to sit down and talk for hours while the crew waited,” she recalled.
She also told the outlet, “[Kubrick] doesn’t print anything until at least the 35th take. Thirty-five takes, running and crying and carrying a little boy, it gets hard. And full performance from the first rehearsal. That’s difficult.”
Duvall recalled about screaming and crying for many takes, “After a while, your body rebels. It says: ‘Stop doing this to me. I don’t want to cry every day.’…. I’d be like, ‘Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.’ And yet I did it. I don’t know how I did it. Jack [Nicholson] said that to me, too. He said, ‘I don’t know how you do it.’”
