-
Name: Shelley Duvall
-
Date of Birth:
July 07, 1949
-
Place of Birth:
Houston, Texas, USA
Mini-bio:
Wide-eyed, toothy, pencil-thin leading lady Shelley Duvall is the daughter of prominent Houston attorney Robert Duvall (not to be confused with Robert Duvall, the actor). While attending a party in 19... read more70, Duvall was spotted by director Robert Altman, who cast her as a Superdome tour guide in his Texas-filmed Brewster McCloud (1970). She went on to play eccentric secondary roles in Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and Nashville (1975), and co-starred opposite another Altman "regular," Keith Carradine, in Thieves Like Us (1974). She earned the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of a garrulous, self-involved senior-citizen-center worker in 3 Women (1977), then wrapped up the Altman phase of her career as Olive Oyl (a role she was surely born to play) in Popeye (1980). Of her non-Altman film assignments, her best included Kubrick's The Shining (1980) -- in which she was cast against type as the only thoroughly normal person in the picture -- and Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977); she was also perfection-plus as the protagonist in the made-for-PBS adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1976). From 1982 onward, Duvall cut down on her acting appearances, concentrating instead on her behind-the-scenes responsibilities as producer of such superlative Showtime Cable Network projects as Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre (1982-1987), Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends (1985-1988), and Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories (1992). These and other star-studded, family oriented endeavors have been assembled by one or all of Duvall's three production companies: Amarillo Productions, Platypus Productions, and Think! Entertainment. Shelley Duvall has also functioned as executive producer of the 1989 TV remake of Dinner at Eight, and has served on the board of governors of the National Association of Cable Programming. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Shelley Duvall mini-bio: Director Robert Altman discovered the gifted, gangly Shelley Duvall while she was attending college in Houston, TX and promptly cast her in her debut film Brewster McCloud (1970). She went on to make seven movies in all with Altman, from the sublimely brilliant Nashville (1975) and 3 Women(1977), for which she won both a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award and an L.A. Film Critic's Association Award, to the ridiculous big screen cartoon bomb Popeye (1980), in which she starred as Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams. Duvall showed herself particularly adept at playing kooky waifs and characters for whom everything goes wrong, like the trusting wife of Jack Nicholson's deteriorating writer in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Among her many fine performances for television was her role in Joan Micklin Silver's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" for PBS' "Great American Short Story" series, considered by many the best adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald to the screen. Duvall's work as a TV producer of children's shows has nearly eclipsed her fine acting career. She formed her own company, Platypus Productions, in 1982 and proceeded to create and executive produce two award-winning series for the cable network: "Faerie Tale Theater", comprised of 26 star-studded episodes, and "Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends", nine tales of American folk heroes. In 1988, she founded Think Entertainment, and has also produced for PBS, TNT, The Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and the three major networks.
