Shelley Duvall Was a Special Actor

Shelley Duvall always seemed to be putting on a show. Consider her role as a tour guide named Suzanne in 1970’s Brewster McCloud. As she leads visitors through Houston’s Astrodome stadium, Duvall’s lollipop eyes are framed by dramatically long eyelashes, and her tender Texas drawl is amplified by a microphone. This was the very first scene of Duvall’s movie career, and it would’ve seemed innocuous enough were it not for the actor’s hypnotic charms. Later, when the film’s titular hero tries running off with Suzanne’s burnt-orange muscle car, she catches him in the act—but it’s no biggie, because she sort of stole the car herself. Later, it’s Suzanne, with her coy, toothy grin, who decides that the two will start dating. Her whims exert a gravitational force.

Duvall, who died Thursday at age 75, wasn’t a conventional bombshell. Still, her look was made for the screen. Her large eyes and lanky physique made her seem like a Modigliani painting made flesh, and her lilting vocals were instantly recognizable, lending her performances a melodic undertone. In Annie Hall, she’s a music journalist rambling enthusiastically about Bob Dylan, even though her schmucky date, played by Woody Allen, doesn’t vibe with her countercultural airs. As Wendy Torrance in The Shining, Duvall infuses her warm, bubbly speech patterns with hope, despite the horrific actions of her husband, Jack (Jack Nicholson). Wendy knows he is capable of violence—he once dislocated the shoulder of their son, Danny, in a drunken rage—but she attempts to keep it together and push forward with optimism, however misguided. Duvall’s eccentric women often found themselves in bleak situations, yet they pursued their ideals beyond reason. They’d rather try and fail than never have tried at all.

This same poignant positivity is what makes Duvall’s role in 3 Women—Robert Altman’s dreamy identity-swap drama—so indelible. Even before we’re officially introduced to Duvall’s Millie Lammoreaux, we hear her voice from a distance, like birdsong. Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) is a new hire at a physical-therapy center for seniors in Palm Springs, and she’s immediately captivated by her co-worker’s endless stream of chatter. Pinky still looks and acts like a little girl, whereas Millie—at least in Pinky’s eyes—is a vision of elegance and independence. Millie’s hair is impeccably coiffed, she smokes cigarettes and drives her own car, and she speaks incessantly of the men she dates. However, Pinky seems to be the only one who is impressed. The other girls at work ignore Millie, the neighbors openly mock her, and “the guys” at the roadside bar where she hangs out pay attention to her only when they’re bored and horny.

When Altman first started working with Duvall, he said he was drawn to her “Raggedy Ann doll” appearance. Her physical qualities made her something of a walking cartoon—in Altman’s Popeye, she played Olive Oyl (incidentally, bullies at school used to call her that when she was a kid). As Millie in 3 Women—a role that won her the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival—Duvall added depth to this feminine artifice. Millie behaves and styles herself in a manner that she’s convinced is glamorous, and to build the character, Duvall studied popular women’s magazines from the time, such as Redbook and McCall’s. Altman, whose working methods were highly collaborative, also allowed Duvall to write several of Millie’s monologues: brisk lies about her social life and banal musings about her favorite recipes.

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Millie is playing the part of a classic Hollywood belle in a world that has no patience for such antics; she’s a lifestyle mood board come to life, and Duvall’s performance contains an anxious undercurrent. When Pinky becomes Millie’s roommate, she also becomes an eager spectator for Millie’s game of smoke and mirrors—but Pinky’s raw enthusiasm also unsettles Millie’s act. She’s used to playing offense—offering a soigné shrug whenever the cute guy rejects her—so her pigtailed admirer’s obsession calls attention to the delicate fantasy world she inhabits. Under the spotlight, it doesn’t look all that shiny.

For a generation of women who have grown up with social media, Millie’s plight might seem familiar. It’s comforting to wield control over one’s image, yet Duvall’s performance is a reminder that this control can be deceptive. Because of the actor’s waifish figure and wobbly eyes, many of Duvall’s characters were considered fragile, a perception that carried over to real life: For years, some fans of The Shining have speculated about the methods used by director Stanley Kubrick, an infamous perfectionist, to achieve Duvall’s genuinely frantic performance—even as Duvall herself has called these rumors of cruelty overblown. But look closer and you’ll notice a quiet resilience at the core of many of Duvall’s performance, and especially in 3 Women. Millie’s relentless world-building is not just a defense mechanism, but a valiant attempt to live otherwise.

“I guess I’ve got a bit of the Peter Pan syndrome,” Duvall said in 1987. “I don’t ever want to lose my innocence or my dreams.” It’s no wonder that Duvall was an avid collector of children’s storybooks, and though she never had a child, her characters emanated a maternal warmth. See the gentle way Millie treats her physical-therapy patients, how all her resentment melts away when Pinky attempts to commit suicide. The two women seem to swap personalities: Millie becomes the concerned caretaker, and Pinky’s injuries turn her into the cheeky seductress Millie pretends to be. Duvall’s nurturing side kept her adolescent streak grounded. Her youthful idealism was constructive; with it, she shaped the worlds she wanted for herself, and like Pinky, we were lucky to have been invited in.