Quirky 1970s actress Shelley Duvall, 75, died at her home in Texas on July 11. Part of the “it’s okay to look like some rando on the street” wave of the 1970s (her mother nicknamed her “Manic Mouse”), Duvall was discovered by Robert Altman, who featured her in Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the bizarre Popeye (“who wants to admit she was born to play Olive Oyl?”), Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, and 3 Women. Her other best showcases were The Shining (terrific as the menaced wife), TV’s Bernice Bobs Her Hair, and Annie Hall. In the 1980s she shifted to producing (and sometimes acting in) Faerie Tale Theatre. Battling financial, physical and emotional woes, she acted sporadically in her later years. “The trick to acting is not to be afraid,” Duvall once said. “When I play a character, at that moment nothing else exists. Certainly no theory. I try not to intellectualize.”
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