‘Of course, another thing that she’s great at’: Remembering the genius of Shelley Duvall

Actress and Texan Shelley Duvall died on Thursday, just a few days after her 75th birthday. 

Duvall was born in Fort Worth, died in Blanco, and lived quite a life in between. She had significant range as an actress: Duvall is perhaps best known for starring in “The Shining,” a horror classic, but she was also a prolific producer of children’s content, too.

After 2002, however, Duvall stopped acting and instead lived a quieter life in the Texas Hill Country. She was often the subject of curiosity for reporters, wondering what had happened to that actress with the expressive eyes they called “Texas Twiggy” for her resemblance to the British supermodel.

Emma Lehman, creator and host of the podcast Texas Twiggy, which dove deep into Duvall’s story, spoke to the Texas Standard about her life and work.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: I think a lot of folks know Shelley Duvall best from her roles in “The Shining” or “Annie Hall.” What other examples of her work stand out to you? 

Emma Lehman: I think what I was really surprised to find in reporting for the podcast was so much of her work behind the camera. You mentioned her children’s show. She starred in a lot of those, but she also produced them. 

Shelley Duvall in a television presentation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” in 1977.
Public domain photo

She owned a handful of production companies throughout her career, and she really revolutionized the industry. She had a lot of business acumen, and she was quite the producer. And she was very accomplished on both sides of the camera. 

How did she end up in Hollywood in the first place, coming from Fort Worth?

You know, she actually never intended to go into the business. She was discovered by Robert Altman when she was showing some paintings of her then-boyfriend. And she thought that she was being poached to come and do, you know, an adult film. 

And it turned out that, no, they just they liked her look, they liked her vibe, and they really wanted her to act. And, you know, the rest is history. She starred in “Brewster McCloud,” was her first role on screen. 

And she had this really, like you mentioned, a lot of passion for the art and the craft and this really unique look and way of doing things and just went from there. 

What were those years – her introduction to Hollywood in the early 70s – like for her living in California, working in show business? Did she enjoy the vibe of the business?

I think that she kind of always had a mind for what she was creating. I think that, as it is for a lot of people coming from outside that world, it was very overwhelming.

And, you know, when she ended up going back to Texas, a lot of that was just, it’s a hard life to live if you are dedicated to the craft of it and you’re not really in it for the money. It’s really easy to get walked all over, and it’s just very difficult to navigate.

So she enjoyed creating and she enjoyed putting out all of the work that she did. But I think that the Hollywood lifestyle was just a lot. And she preferred to kind of live a quieter life, which she eventually was able to do.

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What happened there? When did she leave Hollywood and come back to Texas?

There was a big earthquake in LA in 1994, the Northridge earthquake. And it damaged a lot of her property. And it was kind of a nail in the coffin of, you know, “I miss Texas. I miss that broad expanse.”

And where she ended up moving was this lovely ranch with all of her animals. She was very, very passionate about animals. And she was a brilliant, brilliant mind. And if you asked her about parrots or lizards or anything – she once wrote an article for a birding magazine in Texas.

Like, she had, not just with animals, but just in general, she really had this passion for the things that she loved and was interested in; she had so much knowledge about them. And she was a voracious reader and a Mensa member. And she painted, she wrote – like she was so talented and such a creative and artistic mind.

And I’m just remembering seeing this one photo that keeps circulating of her and her lizards and how passionate she was about wildlife and the fact that she was able, you know, in the latter half of her life to move back to Texas, where she had space for that and lived with all of these animals that she so loved.

I think it’s great to know that she got to be with those animals and with the people that she loved at the end of her life.

Well, what you’re describing is she was a polymath, really, wasn’t she? I mean, she was a real Renaissance person.

Oh, completely. I remember when I first learned that she painted and I would get photos of her paintings and stuff. It was like, of course, another thing that she’s great at. It was like every genre of media that she touched, it seemed like she just really had a talent and a passion for it.

And she was such a fast learner, you know? Again, never went to school for acting, never intended to be an actor and self-taught in production and learned all that back-end stuff of the Hollywood business herself. And I really hope that in remembering her, people also acknowledge just how brilliant she was.

You know, a lot of people think that it was this big scandal or something that pushed her out of Hollywood and that she disappeared. And it was really more just, she did what she set out to do and she was ready to live a quieter life with the ones that she loved in a place that she knew.

Did you get to talk with Shelley Duvall during your reporting?

I came very close. I actually ended up going to her house and talking to her brothers and her family.

It got to a point where the media for so long had been so cruel to her and so focused on her appearance, so focused on controversy surrounding her. And so much of her family had been telling me how exploitative the media had been towards them.

And I realized my goal here was to educate on the things that she had done that were just underreported – like I mentioned, her productions and her work behind the camera. And I realized I didn’t want to contribute to that. I didn’t want to be yet another journalist kind of intruding on her space, especially after she had kind of retired and wanted to live a quieter life.

And it wasn’t until after the podcast that Sarah Lukowski, the research assistant who was also a longtime Shelley fan and did a lot of research, for me and personally, was able to meet Shelley. And they, you know, hung out and became friends.

But we very much didn’t want to go back and make another season or, you know, “what can we get out of her to put in the media?” I wanted to respect that boundary that had been crossed by so many journalists since the 80s.

She became the target of a lot of clickbait, like “you won’t believe what Shelley Duvall looks like now” and that kind of stuff. And there was a certain cruelty to some of the coverage because her appearance had changed and she’d been in declining health for several years.

Could you say more about how that affected her and what life must have been like for her as she tried to dodge some of that?

I think it affected both her and her family. I was able to talk to her brothers for the podcast. And one of her brothers had never spoken to the media at all because he saw how they treated his sister and he didn’t want any part of it. And eventually, you know, he came to trust my motivations and my goals with that podcast.

But I think that a lot of a lot of female celebrities especially, it’s very hard to get your work out there without a discussion of your appearance or your mannerisms or your controversies. And even from the very beginning, even before it was a discussion of, “oh my gosh, this person in their 70s looks like they’re in their 70s” it was, “oh, her teeth are too big” or “her outfits are too crazy.”

Shelley Duvall in May 1976.
Kathleen Ballard, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

And it really was her entire career. And I think that that’s really hard, especially when you’re accomplishing all these things. And that seems to be, if not the only thing, then the first thing.

Part of the reason I did it in audio was I really wanted to get out there the impact that her career had and that her life had and not, you know, “look what she’s wearing and look what she looks like.”

And even before recently, like it was just so much coverage on her appearance. And I think that that was really hard when she was just trying to, you know, make the things that she wanted to make and get her productions out into the world.

The flip side of this, of course, is that even though there were some of these sort of cruel stories and folks trying to focus on her appearance in older age, it seems like – and correct me if I’m wrong here – a lot of younger people, particularly younger women, have developed a kind of earnest affection for Duvall in recent years. Is that true, or no?

I think that’s really true. And I was surprised to find early on in my reporting that there’s a specific touchstone for each kind of generation of her fan base.

You have the people who know her from “Popeye,” who grew up with “Popeye,” the people who know her from “Faerie Tale Theatre.” I found her in college after watching “3 Women” and then watching it over and over and over again.

She brings together so many generations – there were people in in Brazil, she has a really big fan base [there]. Everyone from so many different walks of life and so many different generations has a piece of her work that they can kind of point to as something they were raised on or a big touchstone for them.

By the way, did folks in her adopted Hill Country home embrace her? Did they know much about her? Was she a figure in in her new Texas home?

So she lives in a very small town. And I went into pretty much every business in this town. And I would ask about Shelley, and everybody had a Shelley story.

I think that what’s nice about living away from Hollywood is everyone knew she was just a person like any of us. And, you know, “yeah, she’s come in here for coffee before;” “she’s come in here and bought a vintage vase.”

And like, all the businesses in the area, everyone again had a Shelley story, but it didn’t feel the way it does in Hollywood where you’re using her for social climbing or for clout or something. It was like, “yeah, you know, she’s around.”

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