Shelley Duvall wasn’t a stranger to rejection. In the ’80s, television executives struggled to take the actor seriously as a producer when she pitched her idea to turn fairy tales into live-action shows. But she knew networks “needed me as much as I needed them,” and she made it happen anyway.
With the eventual green light from Showtime and an all-star roster featuring Robin Williams, Teri Garr, Jeff Bridges, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli and Vanessa Redgrave, Duvall’s “Faerie Tale Theatre” became a reality. Even more, it became part of Duvall’s Hollywood legacy — which at the time joined memorable performances in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall,” Robert Altman’s “3 Women,” “Thieves Like Us” and “Popeye,” and Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” “If I had listened to everyone who told me no, I’d never have gotten anything accomplished,” Duvall told The Times in 1991.
“When I really believe in something and someone says, ‘You can’t do it,’ it just spurs me on.” Duvall, whose piercing scream famously punctuated the many horrors of “The Shining,” died Thursday morning. She was 75.
Daniel Gilroy, Duvall’s longtime partner, confirmed that she died at her home in Blanco, Texas, of complications from diabetes. “She had been suffering a lot lately,” Gilroy said, and had lived several months in hospice care. “This was not unexpected.
” “I think of her as a bird in a way, and now she’s free to just fly away,” he said. Ju.