Shelley Duvall, the actor of The Shining, confesses to struggling with anxiety following an emotionally charged performance in the late Stanley Kubrick film. Duvall’s unbalanced state of mind was evident in her 2016 appearance on Dr. Phil, where she stated that she does not believe her Popeye co-star Robin Williams is dead, but rather “shape shifting,” and that she is being threatened by “the sheriff of Nottingham,” among other ramblings.
The Shining is a 1980s psychological thriller with notions so horrific that they took a toll on Duvall, who played Wendy, the wife of the predatory Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson).With her huge brown eyes and slim figure, Duvall was a legend in the 1980s, and today, the 73-year-old is barely recognizable following a Hollywood break. Duvall’s acting career began with a chance meeting at a junior college party she hosted with her then-boyfriend.
Three men, acquaintances of Robert Altman, famed for M*A*S*H, suggested she audition for his film Brewster McCloud. Even though she wasn’t an actor, she accepted the bait and soon won an award for her next performance in Altman’s 3 Women (1977). Hollywood took notice of the newcomer, who later appeared in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977), Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), and Time Bandits (1981).
She also created and hosted the fantasy shows The Faerie Tale Theater and Tall Tales and Legends, for which she received an Emmy nomination. The film adaptation of Stephen King’s book of the same name, The Shining, revolves around the Torrance couple and their young son Danny, who spend the winter maintaining a stately secluded hotel in the Rocky Mountains, which is closed to guests but inhabited by the spirits of victims killed by the previous caretaker.
After having images of the horrible entities who haunt the hotel, Jack’s mental health begins to deteriorate, and as he descends into depravity, Wendy and his small son are put in danger. Duvall’s mental health deteriorated even after the cameras were turned off. Her own hardships contributed to her transformation into the anguished Wendy in The Shining.
Duvall’s first marriage ended in 1974, and her relationship with singer-songwriter Paul Simon ended after she introduced him to her friend Carrie Fisher, who was about to become famous for her portrayal as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars. After two years of living together, Simon dumped Duvall at the airport as she was about to board a plane to begin filming The Shining. Simon then began dating the late Fisher, whom he eventually married.
Duvall, who was emotionally distressed after her split, was then forced to satisfy the famed Kubrick’s unusually high criteria, despite his reputation as a perfectionist. In fact, one sequence with the young Danny Lloyd required 148 takes, earning Kubrick a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most retakes of a single scene.
The iconic stairway sequence, in which Duvall’s character swings a bat at Nicholson, required 127 takes to match Kubrick’s standards. Duvall stated that the sequence took three weeks to film and that “it was very hard.” “Jack was so good-so damn scary,” Duvall recalled. He went on to say, “It was a difficult scene, but it turned out to be one of the best in the film.”In the documentary Stanley Kubrick:
A Life in Pictures, Jack Nicholson said Kubrick was a “different director” than Duvall. According to People, Nicholson states that Kubrick constantly antagonized Duvall, and she showed him clumps of hair that were falling out from the stress of filming that one scene. In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Duvall, who has lost the elfish sparkle that audiences adored, discussed the physical and mental stress of playing Wendy.
“(Kubrick) doesn’t print anything until at least the 35th take,” she went on to say. “After a while, your body will resist. It says, “Stop doing this to me.” I do not want to cry every day. And sometimes, just thinking about it made me cry. To wake up on a Monday morning so early and realize you have to cry all day because it was planned–I would simply start crying. I’d say, ‘Oh no, I can’t.’
And yet, I did it. I’m not sure how I did it. Jack also stated something to me. He said, ‘I don’t know how you do it.Anjelica Huston, an award-winning actress and director, was dating and living with Jack Nicholson at the time of the shoot. According to the speaker, Shelley struggled with the emotional content of the piece. They didn’t appear empathetic. She took it on. “She was, I believe, extremely brave.”
Nonetheless, Duvall has nothing but love for the legendary filmmaker. “He was very warm and friendly to me,” she told me. Despite being nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress, she achieved recognition. “When somebody recognizes you at a Dairy Queen in Texas, you’re a star,” she told People in 1981.
Duvall then played Olive Oyl alongside the late Robin Williams in Popeye, had a little role in 1987’s Roxanne, starring Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah, and another minor role in 2002’s Manna from Heaven. She then recoiled, living quietly in her little Texas town, until she made news after appearing on Dr. Phil McGraw’s show, where he treated her interview as case study.