Shelley Duvall, the actress best known for her roles in “The Shining,” “Nashville” and “Popeye,” died on July 11, 2024 at the age of 75 at her home in Blanco, Texas. Her cause of death was complications from diabetes.
Duvall had not been seen in public for several years. Her last role was in the 2023 horror film “The Forest Hills.” Before that, she had not appeared in a film since “Manna From Heaven,” which was released in 2002.
Duvall has been remembered by friends and cast members who have issued statements since her death was announced. Her “Annie Hall” director and co-star, Woody Allen, told The Guardian: “I realized she was exactly what we wanted as soon as we started filming.”
Her “Time Bandits” colleague Michael Palin added: “We are so sorry we can no longer laugh and share memories.”
Before her death, there was speculation about Duvall’s health, particularly her mental health. In a controversial 2016 interview with “Dr. Phil,” she publicly revealed that she was ill. Duvall had also been diagnosed with diabetes and had limited mobility due to a foot injury, according to an April 2024 New York Times profile.
Duvall kept most of the details about her health under wraps, but here’s what the actress and her loved ones did share with us.
What was the cause of death of Shelley Duvall?
Duvall’s longtime partner, Dan Gilroy, said her cause of death was complications from diabetes. Duvall died in her sleep shortly after midnight on July 11.
“She went after a lot of suffering, which I think is a good thing,” Gilroy told NBC News. “After 34 years … I can’t tell you how much I miss her.”
Gilroy added that Duvall had been bedridden and in hospice care for her diabetes for several months before her death.
Shelley Duvall’s Mental Health
Duvall appeared on the “Dr. Phil” show in 2016 in an episode called “A Hollywood Star’s Descent Into Mental Illness: Saving The Shining’s Shelley Duvall.”
“I’m very sick. I need help,” Duvall said in the episode.
The show’s star, Phil McGraw, and his team were criticized for airing the interview. A spokesperson for “Dr. Phil” previously told TODAY.com that they “wanted to document her struggle and dedicate tremendous resources to changing her course,” but “she declined our initial offer of clinical treatment.”
In a 2023 interview with CNN, McGraw said he “doesn’t regret what (he) did. … What I do regret is that it was promoted in a way that people found inappropriate.” McGraw added that he and his team supported Duvall for more than a year after recording the interview, “providing her with opportunities for both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care. I can’t tell you how far we went.”
Gilroy told The New York Times that he didn’t know Duvall had filmed the segment until days later. “It didn’t do anything for her,” Gilroy told the outlet. “It just put her on the map as a rarity.”
Duvall spoke candidly about the interview in a 2021 article in the Hollywood Reporter. “I found out the hard way what kind of person (Dr. Phil) is,” Duvall said. “My mother didn’t like him either. A lot of people, like Dan (Gilroy), were like, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Shelley.'”
Neither the New York Times nor the Hollywood Reporter provided concrete information about her mental health in their interviews.
The reporter noted that she had mood swings and was still “on edge.” According to the Times, her withdrawal from public life and return to Texas were not due to her mental health, but more likely because her Los Angeles home was destroyed in an earthquake and her brother became ill.
Duvall and Gilroy moved together from California to Texas after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Things were going well for her in L.A. and at first, life in the South was “wonderful,” Gilroy told The New York Times.
“It went downhill when she started to be afraid of things, maybe not wanting to work anymore. It’s really hard to pin it down to one thing,” he said. “She got paranoid and just kind of delusional, she thought she was being attacked. … She tried to call the FBI and ask our neighbor to protect us.”
“It was just shocking that, all of a sudden, from normal, it went so wrong,” Gilroy added.
Shelley Duvall died from complications of diabetes. How could this happen?
Duvall and Gilroy never disclosed what type of diabetes Duvall had, but Gilroy did say complications from the disease caused her death.
Diabetes is the result of too much sugar in the blood, according to the Mayo Clinic. Complications can include heart disease, nerve damage, kidney damage, eye damage and blindness, foot damage, skin and mouth disorders, hearing loss, Alzheimer’s disease, depression and coma, according to the Mayo Clinic.
If diabetes is left untreated or the disease worsens despite treatment, the symptoms can lead to death. One way this can happen is if the body goes into a diabetic coma, when blood sugar levels become too low or too high. Diabetes can also lead to kidney disease or heart disease, which can be fatal.