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Shelley Duvall never intended to become a movie star, or an actor of any kind, but when she did she changed the medium forever. Her long association with Robert Altman made the Texas-born actor, who has died at 75, one of the most recognisable stars of 1970s cinema. In the decade that followed, she changed the face of children’s television as the producer and star of a string of shows that reimagined fairytales for a modern audience. Although her career was long and idiosyncratic, she will probably be best remembered for her indelible performance in the 1980 horror classic The Shining, immortalised with her big eyes as wide as the moon and her face contorted into a scream Edvard Munch could have painted as her husband breaks through a bathroom door with an axe.
