By Lee Pfeiffer
Once upon a time in Hollywood, Shelley Duvall was an acclaimed and sought-after star. She defied the tradition of having to be a sex symbol in order to achieve major stardom. In fact, it was Duvall's "girl next door" looks and persona that ingratiated her to both audiences and critics. She was championed by director Robert Altman and graduated from small parts to major roles in his films. Her star burned brightly but flamed out quickly following starring roles in Altman's ill-fated "Popeye" and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", which afforded the role movie lovers most remember her for. Duvall began appearing in undistinguished films and eventually just vanished from sight, facing mental health and financial problems and entering self-imposed retirement from the film industry. In fact, Duvall vanished so thoroughly that few people even knew that she ended up moving to a rural community in Texas where she has been living a modest lifestyle, to put it mildly. In a remarkable piece for the Hollywood Reporter, writer Seth Abramovitch tracked Duvall's current whereabouts and managed to meet her. He found her to be friendly and charming and surprisingly willing to share her memories of her film career and her trials and tribulations in the years that followed.
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