SHELLEY DUVALL Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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SHELLEY DUVALL

Name: Shelley Alexis Duvall                                                             
Born: 7 July 1949 Houston, Texas, U.S.                                                 
                                                                                       
Shelley Alexis Duvall (born July 7, 1949) is an award-winning American film and         
television actress. She began her career in the 1970s, playing quirky and waif-like     
characters in the movies of Robert Altman, and eventually starred in movies by         
Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton.                             
                                                                                       
Duvall was born in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Bobbie Ruth Crawford (nee           
Massengale), a real estate broker, and Robert Richardson Duvall, a defense             
attorney. She has three brothers, Scott, Shane, and Stuart. Duvall graduated           
from Waltrip High School. Duvall was working as a cosmetics saleswoman at a             
Houston Foley's when she was discovered at a party by production scouts for             
Altman's Brewster McCloud (1970).                                                       
                                                                                       
After a tough interview with Altman, she won the lead role of Suzanne, the free-spirited
love interest to Bud Cort's reclusive Brewster in Brewster McCloud. Altman was         
so impressed with Duvall's work that he cast the young actress in his next films,       
including McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974), and Nashville (1975).   
In 1977, Duvall was awarded a Best Actress by the Cannes Film Festival and the         
Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her portrayal of the delusional Millie         
Lammoreaux in Altman's 3 Women.                                                         
                                                                                       
That same year, Duvall appeared in Annie Hall playing Woody Allen's one-night           
stand. Her next role would be Wendy opposite Jack Nicholson in Kubrick's The           
Shining (1980). 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. In 1980, when Duvall played Olive Oyl in Popeye, critics         
called her "perfect" for the role and said that "she was born to play" the             
character. Though she has appeared in many movies since, she never again reached       
the heights she did with Popeye.                                                       
                                                                                       
From 1982-1987, Duvall produced and acted in a children's television series for         
Showtime called Faerie Tale Theatre. The one hour episodes re-told popular fairy       
tales.