If you’re too young to have fallen in love with Faerie Tale Theatre as a kid, it’s never too late. The classic reinterpretations of fairytales that have left me (and pretty much everyone else I know) with a soft spot for Shelley Duvall are not to be missed and totally worth watching even as an “adult.”
Shelley Duvall produced and often starred in the series, and that would be contribution enough to add Shelley to the ranks of Comediva role models, but there is much more to know and love about Shelley Duvall.
In her 30-year and counting career Shelley Duvall has been muse to a list of directors who could easily be mistaken for a film studies class on great auteurs of cinema. She started out working for Robert Altman, making her debut in Brewster McCloud in 1970. Altman liked her so much that he featured her in many of his most famous works, including McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Nashville. He also featured her in some of his less, urm, artistic endeavors… like Popeye.
If you haven’t s
een Popeye… don’t. It’s not even so bad it’s good, despite the psychedelical weirdness of Robin Williams running around covered in rubber muscles. Oh, and lest we forget, it’s also a MUSICAL.
(insert creeped out shudder here)
But I digress. Altman is far from the only cinematic mover and shaker that saw a muse in Shelley Duvall. Her body of work is rather small, but it’s populated with films made by the likes of Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick , Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton. Just to name a few.
Quality, not quantity is the watchword for this comediva.
Shelley was born in Houston, Texas in 1949. Funny enough, Shelley IS the daughter of Robert Duvall. Just not THAT Robert Duvall. The other Robert Duvall. The defense attorney from Texas who married a Real Estate Broker and liked the letter “S” so much that he named his four kids Shelley, Scott, Shane and Stewart. Shelley was headed for a life as totally normal as her childhood when she was discovered by a group of production scouts working on Brewster McCloud while working at a cosmetics counter at Foley’s department store.
Shelley Duvall defines the idea of, “je ne sais quoi.” She’s never really been in a blockbuster film, but she’s a cinema icon. She’s gorgeous, but it’s hard to say exactly why. She manages to feel like an “every woman,” even though she couldn’t look less average. That’s what made her a perfect 1970s leading lady, and it’s the lesson she has to teach comedivas everywhere. You don’t have to be barbie to be beautiful, and you don’t have to be average to be a normal girl and you can leave your mark on the world by going your own way.
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