The last time the world saw Shelley Duvall was in 2016, in an exploitative interview with Dr. Phil where he talks to a seemingly mentally incapacitated Duvall, who claims that her late Popeye costar, Robin Williams, is actually alive and a shape-shifter. It’s a troublesome interview to watch, seemingly done as a ploy to get views instead of actually helping her. But this year, The Hollywood Reporter’s Seth Abramovitch found Duvall and gave an accurate, caring glimpse at what her life is currently like.
Back in the ’90s, Duvall settled in a small town in Texas, living a very low-key life. From the bits of her extensive conversation with Abramovitch, we can see she’s far more mentally sound than what the Dr. Phil clip showed, and she remembers her time as an actor fondly.
Duvall shares plenty of great stories, among them recalling the Hollywood parties she’d attend in her early L.A. days, “thrown just to look at the young actresses and actors. Some became famous. Like, there was this carpenter guy who got a big job building a waterfall for the home of a studio executive. Every time the executive would have a party, everybody saw the waterfall.” The carpenter is, of course, Harrison Ford.
She also cleared up previous statements that hinted at Stanley Kubrick being emotionally abusive toward her while filming The Shining. When asked by Abramovich point blank about it, she said: “He’s got that streak in him. He definitely has that. But I think mostly because people have been that way to him at some time in the past. His first two films were Killer’s Kiss and The Killing.” She added, “He was very warm and friendly to me. He spent a lot of time with Jack [Nicholson] and me. He just wanted to sit down and talk for hours while the crew waited. And the crew would say, ‘Stanley, we have about 60 people waiting.’ But it was very important work.”
Anjelica Huston, who was dating Nicholson at the time, told Abramovich that she does recall both Kubrick and Nicholson being a bit hard on Duvall while filming, though. “I got the feeling, certainly through what Jack was saying at the time, that Shelley was having a hard time just dealing with the emotional content of the piece. And they didn’t seem to be all that sympathetic. It seemed to be a little bit like the boys were ganging up. That might have been completely my misread on the situation, but I just felt it.”
Abramovich also got to show Duvall The Shining’s iconic staircase scene on his iPhone, making this the first time Duvall had seen the scene in perhaps decades. She had an emotional response to it. When asked by Abramovich why she cried watching it, she replied saying, “Because we filmed that for about three weeks. Every day. It was very hard. Jack was so good—so damn scary. I can only imagine how many women go through this kind of thing.”
It doesn’t look like Duvall’s planning on returning to Hollywood anytime soon, but she doesn’t need to. She seems perfectly happy living a low-key life and that’s all that matters.
Send Great Job, Internet tips to [email protected]
210 Comments
Fuck Dr. Phil
We don’t even need him being a dick to Shelley Duvall to prompt that response.
He’s a exploitative piece of shit.
He’s the symptom, not the disease. It’s the trailer trash and subhuman garbage that demands and consumes that type of content that are to blame. If nobody wants to get high, there ain’t any drug dealers.
You are incorrect. This is why they call them “Pusher Men.”
I can deal with that excuse from the Jerry Springers of the world, but Phil purports to be a mental health expert who is trying to help these people.
*reaching for my antidepressants and disco ball*
He should always, everywhere, be referred to as “Dr.” Phil.
Why? He has a legitimate doctorate degree. He simply decided not to renew his license to practice because he no longer needed it. It’s not a fake degree, and he was a legit practicing psychologist for quite a while. He’s still a piece of shit, but he is a Dr.
Or just Phil. It would stab him right in the ego if he was just one of millions of Phils.
He’s partied out, man.
My husband started our tradition of referring to him as “Mr Phil,” and we’ve been spreading that to family and friends for years now. He may technically be a doctor, but even Mr is probably more respect than he deserves.
I’ve been wondering about that – we cannot call a First Lady with an actual doctorate ‘Doctor’, but this clown can run around claiming the title. Does he even HAVE a doctorate? (asking in earnest, I don’t care to look that slimy piece of shite up)
hate the man too but he’s as much a Dr. as Dr. Jill Biden. We can’t adopt the right’s smearing of education and learning…which was one of their goals when they attacked Dr. Biden (in addition to the sexism). They want to denigrate learning, education and science and it starts by making fun of learned titles.
As a psychologist, he has a doctorate in television and an ism in self promotion.
I just fucking came here to say that exact fucking thing. Fuck that fucking fuckhead fuck.
You just ran out of fucks to give = )
One of many odious personalities Oprah unleashed onto the public.
He reminds me of the Pillow Guy.
Uh, no, no thanks, I’m, uh, good.
With a dirty dog’s dick.
That’s canine abuse!
Anybody within spitting distance of him should do just that.
With a syphilitic cactus
Fuck Dr. Phil
Praise Ms. Shelley.
The worst thing is what he does to little kids, like the 13yo “Catch me outside” girl.It’s bad enough that kids can ruin their lives by posting a stupid video themselves, but to have a grown assed man making his money by manipulating a child into bragging about all kinds of antisocial behavior on his TV show ought to be illegal. It’s child abuse.
Again, this girl is 13 fucking years old, and she’ll have to live with this shit for the rest of her life.
Danielle Bregoli, billed as “My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried to Frame Me for a Crime” survived, and she’s making money off her noteriety, but Phil made sure she got the Britney Spears Treatment on steroids. It could have turned out so very different. Just think if she had to get a normal job.This is the most infamous, but he does this to lots of kids. I wonder how all those other kids end up.
The worst thing is what he does to little kids, like the 13yo “Catch me outside” girl.I was so happy that that girl turned herself into a meme and made a nice chunk of change off merchandise. Good for her. I bet Dr. Phil and his ilk were horrified. Also good.
It was bad enough when Jenny Jones and Jerry Springer and all the other talk show hosts were doing this to kids, but Phil presents himself as a bonafide mental health expert and pretends he is trying to help them. At least be honest like Jerry was and admit you’re doing it for the entertainment and to get people to watch. Asshole.
I can’t give you a galaxy’s worth of stars. Sorry.
My wife is a big fan of “Bull”. I leave the room when it’s on. Not only is it badly written pap, but “Dr. Phil” can kiss my Schwetty Balls before he gets a ratings point from me.
“Dr Phil” is the name of a character or show. He hasn’t been a legit “Dr” in quite some time. We should stop referring to him as such.
And by extension. Oprah. She gave us Phil and Oz.
And Rachael Ray.
He’s a despicable clown, and not just in the case of the Shelley Duvall interview. And, by the way, fuck Oprah for stamping her seal of approval on his forehead and never removing it when she can manage to rip a guy two-thousand assholes on live television because he dared to lie to her about his stupid fake memoir.
Sideways, with a rusty eggplant…..
“You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself?”
Being a flim flam man, I’m sure Phil McGraw can smell a rube from a mile away.
He would have made an excellent snake oil salesman of the Ollllld West. He also makes a great fucking disgrace of a hunan being.
Reading this, I got super concerned that this was all spin; I remember reading in 2016 about Vivian Kubrick trying to intervene to help Duvall, with a lot of commentators saying this might not end so well, seing as Vivian is a scientologist. I think the concern was the cult would get its claws into her, and it was really scary seeing the possibility of her just going from one bad situation to a different, also-bad situation.Luckily, according to an article by the author of the piece this is regarding, Vivian shut down her gofundme and stepped away. I’m glad to hear Shelly Duvall is doing all right (according to one reporter).
According to one reporter, yes. But you do get the sense that there are people in the town who care for her: her long time partner, a long time fan who sought her out, even the waitress at the local cafe. She does seem to be living a contented life, and the people around her who are closest to her seem very protective. I am inclined to trust this reporter as this piece was more of a way to let Shelly Duvall speak her truth freely, rather than trying to exploit any illness she may be experiencing.
Shelly Duvall gave us Faerie Tale Theatre. I know there’s more – her work in Altman films alone would be enough. But man – Faerie Tale Theatre. Created it, hosted, executive-produced – willed it into being -and the cast across the whole series’ run is a testament to the respect other actors had for her (because, you know, that show didn’t pay much at all). Among the actors – Robin Williams, Jeff Goldblum, Gena Rowlands, Jeff Bridges, Mick Jagger, Bernadette Peters, Susan Sarandon, Eric Idle, Harry Dean Stanton…Those are off the top of my head. It’s sad that Ms. Duvall ever had any mental or emotional troubles – extra sad that fucking “Doctor” Phil put her on display like John Merrick or something. [Her one-scene bit in Annie Hall is hilarious. Find it. Don’t need to watch the whole movie…]
To this day I remember my first-ever exposure to Jeff Goldblum was as the Big Bad Wolf… and Billy Crystal as one of the three little pigs (I wanna say Fred Willard was another one but I’m too lazy to look it up).
To link these last two comments, Jeff Goldblum also has five seconds of absolute gold in Annie Hall.
I think his delivery of the line “I’ve forgotten my mantra…” is 100% of what I remember from that movie.
There’s an Annie Hall trifecta, actually – Goldblum, Duvall and Walken. Each taking their individual scenes SO damn seriously…
I love that Christopher Walken appears to be spoofing his onscreen persona, despite that fact that it hadn’t developed yet.
I hear you.But this is also why it’s not easy or automatic to renounce Woody Allen on the basis of his personal life.One can’t just burn the work.
Every so often I still go back and watch those. Loved some of the episodes as a kid and they’re still entertaining. It’s great going back and watching the Boy Who Left Home if for nothing else than Frank Zappa’s hilarious character
Boy Who Left Home… might be my favorite episode. Narrated by Vincent Price, starring Christopher Lee and David Warner, and then of course, Zappa as the oddball servant.
And the great lesson for kids at the end of the episode; marriage is scarier than any ghost, goblin or death itself.
As far as I can tell, Faerie Tale Theatre isn’t available on any streaming platform in the US, which is absolutely criminal. My personal favorite was The Dancing Princesses with Leslie Ann Warren.
I really want to see that but tbf I’d watch anything with Leslie Ann Warren.
It was on Prime for a while like a year ago. In a pinch you can find most of them on YT also.
I bought the complete collection on DVD a few years back – it was under 40 bucks, and now? Over 200! One thing about the production design of the show – a lot of the episodes were made to look like a particular illustrator’s style – Maxfield Parrish in one, Norman Rockwell in another, etc. Attention to detail on the show was amazing. Also (and I know this from watching recently) it was a kid’s show but man, there were always hilarious lines that would go right over a child’s head.
I hadn’t known there was a disc release. I guess I missed THAT window of opportunity…
God bless YouTube sometimes:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfp_r1A709h_A4T5QlnD1nZs7RWo97leF
My favorite is Mother Goose’s Rocking Rhyme… I grew up watching that on tape until it wore out. Turns out that is literally the only work of Shelley’s I’ve seen (I’ve watched bits of the Popeye movie but I didn’t like it as much as the cartoon). Anyway, she’s a treasure & I hate quackdoc Phil
don’t forget Mother Goose Rock n’ Rhyme!
I mean, THIS. ALL OF THIS.
My mother loves to watch Dr. Phil, and every time I’m over there it bothers me greatly, especially as it seems she deals with my mental health in a very Dr. Phil way.As someone who’s had mental illness for most of my life, he is quite possibly the worst example of a mental health professional I’ve ever seen. He is aggressively confrontational with his guests, far more concerned with scoring points on them to make himself look good, but worst of all is his way of reinforcing “common sense” over actual therapeutic methods.tl;dr Dr. Phil can go die in a fire with a cattle prod up his ass
I sometimes rage-watch Dr. Phil (I have my own issues), I can’t imagine if someone in my sphere actually treated me that way. I also have mental health issues, which my family has not dealt with ideally, but at least not with Dr. Phil’s influence!
His career was using psychology to steer court cases toward positive outcomes for wealthy clients. He was never a health professional.
have never had a mental illness, beyond aggressively confrontational people in my emotional and physical space. But I can see how intimidating Dr Phil would be if you had to sit there in a studio, talking to him in a kind of conversation, all the power in his hands. Especially for a little old woman who made a show about Fairy Tales!
Goddamn, Duvall looks stunning in that still. One of the most interesting faces in the history of cinema.
I always thought she was gorgeous then too
Indeed…
100%. Also makes me wish we still had actors/actresses who looked like, you know, unique individuals instead of the same Botoxed/injected/surgically altered/spray tanned/extensions in caricature.
I’m seeing plenty of interesting faces, and not a whole lot of what you’re describing, but maybe I’m watching too many TV shows.
When he was making “Gangs of New York,” Scorsese actually placed an ad in a casting magazine telling actresses not to show up if they’ve been Botoxed because his team had been looking at too many people who couldn’t move their faces to convey emotions!
“Remember when you were young, You shone like duckface,
Shine on, you crazy selfie.”
+1 for the PF reference
From your mouth to Hollywood’s ears.This is why my favorite faces now are Angelica Huston’s, Ileana Douglas’s, Fred Ward’s and Jean Reno’s. I’m as smitten by cinema beauty as the next person, but, god, faces like theirs, or the faces you’d see in Fellini, are like studies from the history of art.
Jean Reno’s face is fascinating to me! He’s a very compelling actor too so I will watch anything he’s in. Although he is not my type, I spend half his movies just…considering
I’m still amazed Katherine Hepburn survived Hollywood.
Catherine Reitman reminds me of her.
Growing up, I thought she was just weird. But as I got older and revisited her work, I began to deeply appreciate not only her acting abilities, but the fact that you couldn’t take your eyes off her. She was stunning.
It doesn’t get mentioned enough, but she was awesome in Roxanne with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah.
An incredibly gifted actor but, yes, also very beautiful and interesting looking. We should value expressive faces more.
Kaitlin Olson is the best expressive actor right now. Between facial expressions and line delivery, she is a goddamn comedic treasure.
Hers and Marie Windsor’s.
I worked with Shelley Duvall in the 90s. She was a true delight: eccentric, sure, but really sweetly so, and definitely intelligent and compos mentis. She was a lot like her character in 3 Women, but smarter and not self-centered or deluded. And she talked a lot about The Shining, and wasn’t as kind about Kubrick as in her remarks in this article. Anyway, a very nice lady, and I’m glad to hear her life is calm and centered.
That’s nice to hear. She just seems very sweet. I think that’s what she conveyed in her best pictures, a kind of fractured sweetness and innocence.
Ugh. 3 Women is one of my all time favorites. She’s a true legend and I really do hope her life is good.
Check out her performance in Altman’s “Thieves Like Us”, won’t you?
There it is. Altman sought out her non standard looks and personality while showcasing them in a positive, compelling, interesting, way. The right director and an actor who can rise to the occasion? Like a magic act!
The right director and an actor who can rise to the occasion? Like a magic act! Every Altman movie she was in, she was sublime. She was in her other work too, but think of this: Brewster McCloud, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, Three Women, and Popeye. They’re not all great, but they’re Altman so they’re (to me) certainly worth watching. Shelley Duvall was luminous in each one, in a major role or minor.I just took a look at her filmography, and was reminded of a movie called Frog, a kid’s movie starring her and Elliott Gould, which my children used to watch over and over. Honestly I can’t think of anything she did that wasn’t great. Elsewhere here I mentioned Faerie Tale Theater which alone puts her in the pantheon of show business goddesses. I do not exaggerate.
Right–there are those of us who still remember Faerie Tale fondly. It was a heart breaker after the Dr Phil episode, she became a pitied and/or ridiculed figure to some who probably had never taken the time to watch her and see her obvious talent and the sincerity she brought to her characters.
Shelley Duvall has my love forever for Faerie Tale Theatre. Any children of the 80s out there with me?
I was an adult then, I’m with you.
LOL in a couple of years I get to start showing them to Little Valve, and I can barely wait.
My kids were born in the 90’s and missed them all. I’m starting to have grandkids now, we may have to revisit them!
(starred, in case it doesn’t show up)
I had a few of them on tape. The only episode I can recall is the one where Paul Reubens played Pinocchio.
It’s very interesting that she rejects the narrative that Kubrick abused her. I wonder if she ever said that happened or if it was that pushed by other people on her behalf. What exactly is the origin of that?
How does she reject it? She tried softening the reality of it, yes. Which is textbook survivor behavior, by the way.She’s essentially clarifying that he wasn’t always a monster towards her but that he also definitely was at times. “That streak.”Which almost every abuser has streaks. If they couldn’t behave and be charming at some point they wouldn’t be able to have victims and people ever pay any mind to them and give them the chance.I’m not judging Kubrick as a whole but he was an abuser and he did have victims. That doesn’t make him a sadistic psychopath, automatically, but it certainly disqualifies him from being viewed as a kind person and it also warrants suspicion on his legacy and actions. Modern context or not. Some of his behavior was considered abusive back then just as much as it is now.
In the article she doesn’t sugarcoat how difficult the shoot was or the toll it took on her (though I think that is also a bit overblown with people pointing to that as the reason she left show biz. She didn’t up and quit the business after the Shining. She stayed in it for another 15 years or so, and actually became a pretty powerful producer in children’s television, before exiting). She’s pretty frank about that aspect of it. But if we’re going to accuse Kubrick of singling her out and purposely making her life hell, I’m not sure what there is to support that. She says that he was “warm and friendly” with her. That streak she mentions doesn’t necessarily mean it was directed at her, or that he was like that any significant percentage of the time. She has no reason not to be frank about it at this point. Kubrick is dead, she’s not even in show business anymore, if she said he was abusive she would be embraced at this point. I think if she really felt that way she’d say it.
There is video evidence shot by Kubrick’s own daughter. Even in the article, Anjelica Huston mentions how Kubrick and Nicholson treated Duvall.
Now, you have a point, I don’t think Kubrick’s treatment led to Duvall’s mental health struggles (even the article makes it sound like Duvall leaving Hollywood stemmed more from financial troubles and her house being damaged during an earthquake than mental health issues) but that doesn’t excuse the fact he psychologically abused her.
It doesn’t take away from the film but we’re going to have to have to start watching films from the 70’s (I know The Shining was made in the 80’s, but the 70’s are all over it) and watch them with the knowledge that a lot of the were made under questionable circumstances and that the actors (especially women) were conditioned to just accept that. Watch a documentary about the making of The Exorcist Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair describe physical abuse happening like it’s just a fun anecdote. And they were maimed during the making of that film. They both still have health issues as a result of Friedkin completely disregarding their safety to get his shot.
It probably came from a couple sources. The earliest was an interview with Duvall by Roger Ebert that she gave in 1980, where she described the filming of The Shining as “Almost unbearable, but from other points of view, really nice.” She doesn’t seem to ever blame Kubrick himself for this though, mostly complaining about the emotionally draining content of the script, the large number of takes (which can be attributed to Kubrick, but that isn’t necessarily targeted directly at Duvall), and the fact that the press only talked about Kubrick as a director and rarely mentioned her performance one way or another.Jack Nicholson has also indicated that while Kubrick treated him well on set, that Kubrick seemed to not get along with Duvall and did not treat her well but didn’t give many specific details, other than saying that Duvall probably had the hardest job of any actor that he had ever seen.The most damning evidence was a documentary shot by Vivian Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick’s daughter, during the filming of The Shining. In the documentary, Kubrick told everyone in the production to not give sympathy to Duvall and to ignore her in an attempt to isolate her, frequently yelled at Duvall that she was wasting the time of everyone on set, and refused to ever give her praise. So, considering that it was caught on film, Kubrick definitely did not treat her well, to put it very mildly.
There’s also evidence of him not treating other performers well. Malcolm McDowell was nearly blinded by in one eye because of the way Kubrick had the mechanism that pried his eyes open in A Clockwork Orange set up (And he didn’t even realize how bad the damage was until after they stopped filming for the day because Kubrick had a doctor applying anesthetics to his eyes. He also claims Kubrick stole money from him because he was supposed to get 2.5% of ACO‘s box office earnings that WB was entrusting Kubrick to deliver to him.
Probably because we have footage like this. Later in that same clip, she sits down for an interview and thinks it helps put her in the right emotional space for the role. But Charisma Carpenter’s words about Joss Whedon come to mind: Despite the harassment, a part of me still sought his validation. I made excuses for his behavior and repressed my own pain. I have even stated publicly at conventions that I would work with him again. Only recently, after years of therapy and a wake up call from the Time’s Up movement, do I understand the complexities of this demoralized thinking.I love Kubrick’s work. It’s just outstanding. But it doesn’t excuse his behavior, especially if it wasn’t emotionally tolerable for Duvall.
Wow, I don’t know what’s going on with kinja, but it murdered my comment. It bumped my hyperlinks to the beginning of each paragraph, so sorry about that. Here’s the clip in question:
The damndest thing about that specific Kinja bug is how when you click to edit your comment, the hyperlink is in the correct place in the editable text.Anyway, yeah, obviously we can’t go back and change Kubrick’s behavior, but we definitely can and should try to move away from that sort of “tortured genius” thing as some inseparable quality of great art. It reminds me a little bit of how a lot of kitchens departed from the shouty abusive chef model of operation when they realized you could still still provide excellent food while also being mostly nice to your coworkers.Because it’s always been possible. Herzog, for one, produced several Great Films™ under collosally stressful situations, if we entertain the argument that huge amounts of stress creates great performances, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that says Herzog was an emotionally abusive dickhead toward his actors.
Harrison Ford can make waterfalls?
Not very good ones. He should stick to rivers and lakes.
It is what he’s used to.
LMFAO! I was going to make that joke but I’m glad you did instead.
It really does work better as a comment-and-response by two separate people.
TEAM work makes the punchline.
GUY DID A PETER PAN, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT ORRFA THIS DAM!!!!
Man, that’s funny on so many levels. Have a star.
I sometimes ponder how movies would be different if Harrison Ford had taken up, say, auto mechanics as a trade instead of carpentry.
Tom Selleck would have been an even bigger star.
He probably would have been discovered by Steve McQueen or Paul Newman?
Probably not that different, as his side hustle that got him exposure to hollywood power brokers was selling weed…BTW, I’m not judging.
Han Solo would be an interstellar remodeler.
Tom Selleck would have been a bigger star.
Gravity does all the work. /pffft
So HE was who TLC was talking about
Planes to0
I think the point of his interview was to show she needed help. But he didn’t have to let her spill her guts on camera to do it. He could have just offered it and then did a show about her getting better or how she feels after getting help.
I understand people trying to cope with a famous person’s death by trying to convince themselves that the person feigned their death and is simply living a life as an average person with a mundane life— especially now that it’s easier than ever for a former to be tracked down. But it seems like something that could be easily fact-checked and verified, so I doubt many celebrities have actually done that. It’d probably just be easier to just do what she did and retire from acting, not use social media, etc.
She talks about Robert Altman in the same way in the interview, and honestly it comes off much more as “I know he’s dead but this is what I like to imagine he’s doing now.” I have a feeling that Dr. Phil clip was carefully selectively edited to make her seem as crazy as possible.
He does that a lot. Lying scumbag.
The way it works now, if you don’t show up for a few months, people just assume you’re dead.
People that take seriously anyone with a title ‘Dr’ followed by a first name are sadly under-educated and follow ignorance from the Springer 90’s. That also includes the ‘Judge’ Judy’s, and Detective ‘insert first name’.
I hear she once had a one pound dog.
I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HAAAAAAAAAAAATE the narrative that Stephen King constructed that Shelley Duvall was somehow too “passive and meek” to make a great Wendy Torrence. Duvall gave perhaps the all-time greatest, most lived-in portrayal of an abuse victim I’ve ever seen. She seen where she nervously but pleasantly describes Jack dislocating Danny’s shoulder to an obviously horrified social worker is one of the best scenes in The Shining.
She is fantastic. I genuinely believe she’d scared beyond belief.
Yeah, what business does the creator of a character have criticizing an actor playing that character?
Idiot. Duvall created the character. While written for and “directed”, Wendy was created by Duvall. You smell like an incel.
I’m sorry, you’re gonna have to show your work on that one. I think that the creator of a character has a right to critique an adaptation of that character and that somehow means I’m an incel?
The ad hominem was pointless, of course that doesn’t mean you’re an incel. The point you’re missing though, the character we saw on screen wasn’t just created by Kubrick/King. It was mostly created by Duvall, who translated descriptions and dialog into a character. In all fairness, it’s probably not far-fetched to assume (again by smell) you’re in the camp of wholeheartedly advocating Nicholson created Jack Torrance. If I’m again mistaken, my bad. Must be my sense of smell.
Seems like I’m trying to start shit where there shouldn’t necessarily be shit. My bad. Not going to argue semantics, I don’t think we disagree as much as I’m aiming for after reading some of your other comments.
Yeah, I don’t think I helped myself by using snark. I think Duvall is excellent in the role. I *also* think King is justified in criticizing that version of the character. And I’m annoyed by the OP’s attitude towards King. But then I tend to be pretty defensive of creators taking shit. I ran into similar heat when I defended Rob Thomas for his decisions regarding Veronica Mars. A lot of Mars fans don’t like Thomas’s view of the character. Well he created her so too f’ing bad.(I take people’s point about a character being a co-creation of a writer and a performer but ultimately the character originates with the writer, no matter what the performer interprets.)
Frankly, not much? Certainly he created the character and he has a specific way in which he thinks of his own character, but as consumers we also have our opinion of what we think that particular piece of art means. If we think he’s hella wrong, then he’s hella wrong. Full stop.I’m in the “He’s hella wrong” camp and Duvall was flawless as a domestic violence victim.
Blah blah death of the author blah.
LOL fuck off, kid.
Nah. You.“kid”
That’s the point. Wendy wasn’t a domestic violence victim in the book. I assume you never read the book. Most people who are mad at King’s criticism of the movie never read the book. The criticism isn’t that it’s a bad movie. It’s that it’s a bad adaptation of the book.That said, he’s mellowed out a lot on that since then. The Outsider’s Holly was completely different in the show than she was in the book. (And I’m not talking about race, because that’s not important to the character.)
Thank you. I probably should have responded like you and not with sarcasm.
I totally understand the desire to use sarcasm. I’m a pretty sarcastic person. And it’s been long enough, you would think people would understand a) what his argument against the movie was and b) that he really doesn’t care anymore. (I mean, after Lawnmower Man, he probably thought, “Eh, Kubrick’s movie wasn’t so bad after all.”)
I suppose we read two different books then, because the relationship between the characters was not a glowing representation of a healthy relationship between a husband and wife.That said, the point still stands. An author’s intention of how a character should be means absolutely nothing in light of how a viewer (or reader, in your case) interprets the character. If I read the book, then watch the movie (or vice versa) and come out of it thinking “Yep, that’s her, that’s Wendy, Duvall did a great job” then King’s opinion means absolutely nothing.
Please, point me to where I said the relationship in the book was healthy. Since you clearly only deal with things in oversimplification’s, I think we’re done here.
Absolutely, here you go, my good man. I have to put it in actual quotes since I can’t get the Kinja quote thing to work:“Wendy wasn’t a domestic violence victim in the book.”
Relationships can be unhealthy without being abusive. I’m not a man.
Please, point me to where I said the relationship in the book was healthy. Since you clearly only deal with things in oversimplification’s, I think we’re done here.
See, everyone thinks of Stephen King as he is now. I mean, he was obviously famous then, but in no way was he going to win out on anything over Stanley freaking Kubrick.
He was also incredibly high all the time.
You’re not wrong. I’m not sure why you’re saying it to me but you’re not wrong.
The creator of that character is too close to the story. King was bottoming out in his alcoholism at the time. He was brave to essentially portray himself as an abuser, but his blinders didn’t let him see how the abused truly act. He did get better about that in books like Lisey’s Story, however.
He’s also been criticizing that movie (and Shelley Duvall’s performance) consistently for 40 goddamn years. Maybe it was a little interesting 20 years ago?
Lisey wasn’t abused, though.
Yeah, but I’d also say that King was outing himself as an addict who only becomes an abuser because supernatural forces made him do it. And you can see this in the specific complaints King made most loudly of the movie: (1) that it downplayed the supernatural element and (2) that Nicholson played Jack as slightly off-key right from the start.I don’t think King could see that the story was not about him anymore. It was Kubrick’s adaptation, and Kubrick wanted to move the focus from the supernatural to the psychological, and Kubrick wanted to shift the story from a poor unfortunate writer with problems who gets taken over by the Overlook ghosts against his will to an already dangerous husband and father who is partly complicit in his further downward trajectory. And I would defend those changes as (1) amore realistic depiction of abusers, and (2) a change of perspective from the abuser (“it’s terrifying what I might do to others”) to the abused (“it’s terrifying and I don’t know how to stop it”).And while Kubrick dialled down the supernatural elements, they’re still definitely there. The ghosts aren’t just in Jack’s head. Danny also sees them. And if the ghosts weren’t real, the film would have ended with Jack being locked in the kitchen storage room.
The story was still about King, though, that’s what pisses him off. The story was being told from someone who wasn’t close to it, who could sit back & take a cold, clinical look at it, and conclusively say that Jack was an abusive piece of shit. King doesn’t like that, because King thinks there’s more to it, and maybe to him there is, but at the end of the day Kubrick was probably right.
Considering he disowns the movie entirely, it kind of isn’t his business. His Shining isn’t Kubrick’s Shining, so Kubrick’s Wendy doesn’t need to be his Wendy.
One informs the other, though. Part of his disowning of the film is disagreement over a portrayal of his character. In fairness to her, I’m guessing what King dislikes about her version is on the script page too.
He can criticize and he can be wrong, which he is.
Cool.Read the number of “hate”s in the original post and tell me my sarcastic response is unwarranted.
Even unaltered work’s perception is largely outside of the creator’s control. When other people are involved in remaking it, it’s easy to become blind to the strengths of the adaptation due to being focused on your original vision.I’d say that it’s fair to express your disappointment in this case, but there’s hardly any objectivity to it.
I think King’s general dislike of Kubrick’s adaptation may be as much at play there as anything.
I think the movie as a whole is wildly overrated, but Duvall gives one of the great performances of the 1980s in it, maybe only second to Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice,” in my book. Her work in it is just harrowing, but Nicholson gets praised to the hills for finally going over the top into full-clown territory. (And you can see from my icon up there that I’m a Jack Nicholson fan. I think, at his best, he’s as remarkable an actor as we’ve ever seen in American movies.)
Story goes that even Nicholson thought he was hamming it up. He reportedly asked Kubrick, “Stan, don’t you think I’m playing it a little broadly?”
Yeah, I kinda hate his performance honestly. He starts at 9 and goes to 10. I never believed he was actually a sweet, caring father. As a fan of the book I hate it but even taking the film on its own merits, which I quite like and think is a horror classic, Jack is the weak link imo. There’s just no subtlety. Don’t get me wrong: he’s scary. He does unhinged very well. But it’s not enough of a hill to climb from the opening scenes.(FWIW, I think Carnal Knowledge is an overlooked masterpiece)
Eespecially as I get older, the scariest part of the movie is Duvall clutching that cigarette and trying to laugh off her husband seriously injuring her son. Especially her line “it’s the kind of thing you do a thousand times.” It’s a great performance and a really well written role. It’s just shitty that Kubrick and Nicholson felt that actually abusing her was the best way to get the performance.
All for a movie King disowned before finish watching.
She isn’t supposed to be playing some victim though. She is playing a woman who takes a firm stance on her husbands drug problem and forces him to take a hard look at life and drop the drugs.
The story is about how The Overlook feeds on his inherent addictive tendencies and how a strong female character watches her husband lose his grip on sanity and how she responds to protect her son.
So, yes, from the view of the author of the Book — she was entirely too meek. But the movie is not the story the author was telling. It’s what Kubrick wanted to make it.
Nah
Moreso, we’ve seen the actual choices King has made when adapting his own writing. It’s universally shit. He’s a hack with a good knack for making up plotlines. That is the extent I’m willing to give him credit as a creator. (LOL @ the idea of Stephen fucking King as some sort of expert at characterization.)
No one’s forcing you to read or like his work, but you don’t have to make fun of people who do.
Excellent read!
Stephen King said that because the character in the book is not an abuse survivor. Well, not long time, anyway. Her husband is an alcoholic and that has been an issue on their marriage. The book kind of says that Jack broke his son’s arm, but it also heavily implies it was an accident caused by him being drunk and not a deliberate breaking of the arm. Now, livin with an alcoholic isn’t a walk in the park, but it’s far from being abused regularly for years. So, in the book, Wendy is a very strong personality and neither she nor Danny are afraid of Jack until after they get to the hotel. The biggest thing she’s afraid of is that he’ll start drinking again. Honestly, Kubrick took away a lot of the characterization that King had in the book. Kubrick did a fine job with what he turned it into, but it is a bad adaptation because it ignores the heart of the book. It also never really shows Jack as trying to overcome his demons and that’s a big deal in the book.Duvall did a great job portraying the character she was told to portray, but it’s not the character in the book.
She’s not supposed to be an abuse survivor in the book because King hadn’t yet reckoned with how abusive his (and others’) alcoholism could truly be.
would be surprised if Kubrick had chosen an actor who wasn’t the right fit for his vision of the book, since he controlled and planned everything. Duvall had a nervous complaint from the get go, his Wendy. Sounds as if she became confused or disoriented on set with Dr Phil, which, to be fair, would happen fairly easily if that were his intent. Could be that she meant Williams was a chameleon as an actor, which was also true.
Hope she found happiness outside of the role that was chosen for her. What a big wide world we live in, when we’re not stuck with a screen.
“an exploitative interview with Dr. Phil […] seemingly done as a ploy to get views instead of actually helping her”Wait, really? That guy doing an exploitative interview, and with a sensationalist purpose rather than actually helping the guest? Now we can say we’ve really seen it all, folks. Who would’ve thought.Sarcasm aside, this is very good news — that she’s apparently doing better than that what transpired in that horrific interview. I will never not feel bad for liking The Shining (and all of Kubrick’s filmography, if we’re being honest). What an amazing director/despicable person.
At this time that interview came out, everything was so shitty I knew that there would be no real blowback for a very unwell person being made a laughingstock on national television – I was just glad that most people seemed to be rightfully horrified. I have worried about Shelley Duvall since then, somewhere in the back of my mind. Her current life mirrors a number of people I’ve known over the years, enough to where some parts were difficult to read. I’m glad that those around her at least seem to be trying to look out for her. I hope she is at some kind of peace. She brought many people happiness and entertainment for a long time, and will continue to do so. This piece gave her back the dignity that the unflushed, smirking turd tried and failed to take away.
Yeah, my parents are the same. They seem aware at times, but the cognitive maps that guide their decision-making and emotions are so off this planet they might as well go and live there.
I wish them peace, know that they’re comfortable, and that’s the end of that story for me. I let them go.
Cannot lie; when I saw this headline my instinctive thought was “Last word? Surely Shelley Long appeared on Modern Family not that long ago ohhhhhhhh right.”It seems that in this world of strife and uncertainty, my Pavlovian instinct to confuse Shelley Long and Shelley Duvall as being the same person remains a frustrating yet oddly comforting constant.
You know, “Shelley Short” would be a great punny stage name for a five-foot-tall drag queen.
Golf clap for your comment. Very well done!
At least you know she’s not Shelley Winters.
Anyone who braved the dangers of The Poseidon Adventure stands apart in my mind.
I still think her best work was “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus”- no, wait, that was Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. I must be thinking of her excellent work on “Ozymandias”- no, that’s Percy Bysshe Shelley….”Where The Sidewalk Ends”- dammit, that’s Shel Silverstein….
she does recall both Kubrick and Nicholson being a bit hard on Duvall
while filming, though. “I got the feeling, certainly through what Jack
was saying at the time, that Shelley was having a hard time just dealing
with the emotional content of the piece. And they didn’t seem to be all
that sympathetic. It seemed to be a little bit like the boys were
ganging up. That might have been completely my misread on the situation,
but I just felt it.That’d be in character for Kubrick, though, right? I mean, seems like something he’d do deliberately, for the specific purpose of getting a realistic performance out of her.
I feel so bad for her. I just wanna hug her. Fuck Phil, exploitative fucker!
Dr. Phul of Shit
Dr. Phil is an objectively terrible person and he is not a psychologist. And what he and his crew did to Duvall was exploitative and disgusting.But if you read that THR piece and somehow came away from it thinking all is right in the world with Duvall and she couldn’t be happier, then you know about as much about mental illness as McGraw does. She’s functional, but…come on.
He just wanted to sit down and talk for hours while the crew waited. And the crew would say, ‘Stanley, we have about 60 people waiting.’So is this why part of The Shining’s sets burned down and they had to borrow stage space from Empire Strikes Back next door?Also, by every account, Empire’s production was a party from start to finish, like even Harrison Ford had a good time. I would fully expect, in contrast, Kubrick forbade any of his crew from hanging out with Empire’s or having any kind of “fun” on his set.
That behind the scenes footage from Empire Strikes Back they released a little while ago in honor of the movie’s 40th anniversary really makes it seem like the most fun anyone ever had. Thanks to a combination of youth, cocaine, and joie de vivre, every time you see Carrie Fisher it feels like a party just started.
In Eric Idle’s autobiography, he talks about partying all night with the cast at George Harrison’s house (and there were pictures!). They apparently went from the party directly to filming the scene where they land at cloud city and were all completely hammered. Idle says if you know this, you can totally tell.
“Dr.” Phil shouldnt be the final word on anything.
The sweetest part of the story was the fan of the Shelly Duvall produced “Faerie Tale Theatre” trying to get her memorabilia back and then capping it with a 70th birthday Faerie Tale cake. Love wins in the end.Definitely the feel good story to start 2021.
Doctor Phil Sucks.
doctor phil should never be the last word on anything. especially mental health and interior decorating.
It’s a troublesome interview to watch, seemingly done as a ploy to get views instead of actually helping her.AKA the whole foundation of Dr. Phil’s disgusting career.
Remember Fairy Tale Theatre?
Wouldn’t have been the same without her graceful opening remarks.
The fact that history doesn’t recognize Kubrick as a world class SUPER method Diva and Jerk always surprises me. The staircase scene in shining was filmed something like 50-100 times until everyone involved was cratering just so he could get Duvall on film super stressed. Or at least that is how I heard it.Anyone willing to work with that guy has or had problems.Glad she found something she is happy with, being an actor once you get past the AAA stars always seems to suck.
In my opinion Shelley Duvall was the absolute best actor in The Shining. As King long ago pointed out, we’d recently seen Nicholson acting all crazy in Cuckoo’s Nest, and were ready for it again. So when Jack Torrance starts hamming it up, it’s no surprise. Shelley Duvall was heartbreakingly real as Wendy. She’s the one character in the story who’s truly trapped, and was truly trapped well before Jack took the caretaker job. Jack quickly starts to embrace the Overlook’s power, and Danny has his own chance at coping with the horror. But Wendy? Wife of a guy who has already broken their son’s arm? A guy who was a violent drunk before all this happened? She’s stuck and trying her damnedest to make the marriage work again (if it ever did), to protect her son and (though it’s way too late) save her husband. The scene where she’s talking to the social worker about Danny’s “accident” is straight out of every abused/abuser rationalization textbook, and all the more sad because you know she wants to believe that such a thing is, if not normal, at least not unusual. And the part where Jack confronts her, bearing down on her in rage (I think it’s when she reads all his manuscript pages?)… She played that scene perfectly. Wendy doesn’t want to believe how awful things are, and still clings to the hope that this is just Jack being his normal (rage-filled alcoholic) self. Nicholson plays it well too (in my opinion the best work he does in the movie) when he, instead of attacking her physically (yet), begins by mocking her in a whiny, dismissive tone. You know, just like an abusive husband does.The Shining isn’t my favorite Kubrick movie, or King adaptation, but it sure has its moments. Try to imagine ANY actress of that period as Wendy, any woman who could do as real a job as Duvall does. You can’t. (Well, I can’t.) We’ve all heard that Kubrick was a taskmaster and dismissive of her performance, and we know for a fact that he was (to put it mildly) a perfectionist. That makes her work in the movie all the more impressive – dealing with whatever on-set crap he put her through and coming up with, as I say, the best performance in the entire film.My opinion, yes, but… I’m correct.
You’re not wrong and marvelously eloquent in defense of Shelley Duvall (thank you). But the seventies produced an unbelievably good crop of American actresses. Here’s who would also have been magnificent: Katherine Ross, Gena Rowlands, Ali McGraw, Jill Clayburgh. Mia Farrow.
“seemingly done as a ploy to get views instead of actually helping her”aka Dr. Phil’s Hypocritical Oath
“…Robin Williams, is actually alive and a shape-shifter.”I’d think this would be obvious to anyone who was paying attention.
Funny how you never saw him and Mark Ruffalo in the same room together.
As if we wouldn’t notice! After all, we’ve seen it all through the yellow windows on the evening train.
Good show, old bean!
This place exists in Seattle, though it’s a damn shame the menu options don’t actually have names that sound like prostitutes.https://9thandhennepin.com/
Didn’t know that, if I ever get out of this pandemic it sounds like a good destination for a road trip. The donuts you find at 9th and Hennepin in Minneapolis have been played out for ages.
wtf they have all these Valentine’s donuts and not a one is Blue
Is that the sequel to “The Yellow Wallpaper”?
I never thought of Robin Williams as a Skrull but now I totally see it
I would love to bump into her while on a motorcycle ride through a small town or something here in TX. But i would never share what town because who wants gawky fans and nosey media posters pestering them? The Shining was a memorable movie and she played a terrified actress very well. Of course now a days things are different and people look back at old movies and find all the things wrong by todays standards. Which I get it. But did they ever make a 3D version of the shining? That would be awesome. Well I hope she continues to have a life the way she wants it. She is the only person that could have played Olive oil in my book.
Dr. Phil doesn’t give a damn about the people he claims to be trying to help on his daily show. All he cares about are ratings and money, and being a smartass that belittles his so called guests, just to prop up his own gargantuan ego. I’ll throw a party the day he smarts off to the wrong person on his show, and that person calls him out for it, then stands up and knocks him flat on his ass.