Toothpick-thin with bingo-ball eyes, a Modigliani face and a tremulous, broken-doll voice, Shelley Duvall, who has died aged 75, would have been an unforgettable screen personality at any point in history. That she began acting in the 1970s, when the unorthodox and the eccentric enjoyed a brief window of opportunity in US cinema, was fortunate. Falling into the orbit of the maverick director Robert Altman was even luckier.
Altman said she could “swing all sides of the pendulum: charming, silly, sophisticated, pathetic – even beautiful”. She became part of his unofficial repertory company, appearing in seven of his films.
