Shelley Duvall and Robert Altman

There’s been a lot written about the great director/actress relationships, ranging from the seven movies Marlene Dietrich did for Josef von Sternberg to all the movies Ingmar Bergman did with many different actresses, including Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Liv Ullmann. One of the stronger actress/director pairings in America was director Robert Altman and actress Shelley Duvall, who passed away on July 11, four days after her 75th birthday. Duvall would later become known for creating, presenting, and appearing in Faerie Tale Theatre, and for appearing in other movies such as Annie HallTime BanditsRoxanne, and most controversially, The Shining, where her performance was derided when the movie came out (she was nominated for a Razzie), though there’s been a critical re-evaluation of her performance since then, especially considering the many takes director Stanley Kubrick made her do (the Razzies rescinded their nomination years later – also, for the record, Duvall would later say in interviews she enjoyed working with Kubrick). Still, I think Duvall’s work with Altman represents the best part of her career.

Ironically, Duvall never intended to be an actress. She was living with artist  Bernard Sampson (whom she would later marry, though she would divorce him after 14 years of marriage), and would throw parties to help promote his work. Tommy Thompson (Altman’s assistant director on 14 movies up until his death in 2000) and Robert Eggenweiler (who was a producer on 11 of Altman’s movies) happened to attend one of those parties, and immediately told Altman about her. According to Mitchell Zuckoff’s oral autobiography of Altman, Eggenweiler and Thompson told Duvall a “patron” would like her to show him Sampson’s paintings, and that patron turned out to be Altman. Both of them were suspicious of each other at first – Altman thought Duvall was “full of shit”, while Duvall thought Altman was making a porn film – but they soon warmed to each other. Duvall (who would later give Altman the nickname “Pirate”) would appear in seven movies for Altman, starting with the movie Altman decided to cast her in even though he was already shooting it.

As Suzanne in Brewster McCloud.

Altman had a habit of making offbeat films throughout his career, but Brewster McCloud (1970), his follow-up to M*A*S*H (which came out earlier that year), was offbeat even by those standards. It involves the title character (Bud Cort), a recluse living in Houston Astrodome and building wings so he can fly, with the help of Louise (Sally Kellerman), a mysterious woman in a trenchcoat, while trying to dodge Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy), a detective investigating a series of murders Brewster is responsible for. There’s also an ornithologist (Rene Auberjonois) who lectures the audience from time to time while gradually developing bird-like characteristics like chirping and twisting his body to look like a bird. In addition to his playing around with the credits yet again (the opening credits start twice, while the cast is introduced at the end as if it they were circus performers), this was the first time Altman would step out of the more “realistic” genre deconstructions he was known for to strive for something more dreamlike. It’s definitely not to everyone’s taste (except for Roger Ebert, critics at the time, even Altman champions like Pauline Kael, didn’t know what to make of it), but if you’re on the wavelength of its humor, I think it’s a lot of fun, and a lot of that is due to Duvall.

Duvall plays Suzanne, a tour guide at the Astrodome, who ends up seducing Brewster. This was the type of performance where the actor is said to be playing “themselves”, as Duvall doesn’t seem to be acting at first. Though Suzanne does her job as a tour guide well enough, she is quite willing to go off on tangents whenever it suits her (when asked about bathrooms, she says they’re not real bathrooms, because “they don’t have a tub or anything like that”), and even in the uniform of a tour guide, she looks like someone from the cast of Hair, with her shoulder length hair and the eyelashes painted on the bottom of her eyes. One day, when Brewster is caught in the rain and gets in his car, Suzanne gets into the car with him and accuses him of stealing her car, though she doesn’t seem to mind. The way she talks about her ex-boyfriend Bernard (William Baldwin – not Alec’s brother) – who works for Weeks (William Windom), the politician who brings Shaft onto the case of the murders – so guilelessly charms Brewster, as does when she drives him away from the pursuing police (the impish grin Duvall gives when she puts on racing gloves before she drives away is one of her finest moments on screen), and they end up sleeping together. However, Suzanne recoils when Brewster tells her of his dreams of flying, and that he was responsible for the murders, and she immediately contacts Bernard to tell him. As sexy, and apparently kooky, as Suzanne is, there’s also a decency to her, and Duvall effortlessly plays that as if she was a veteran, rather than making her film debut.

As Ida in McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Altman then proceeded to cast Duvall against type in his next film, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which Claude and I talked about on our show. In the movie, Duvall plays Ida Coyle, a mail-order bride in 1902 Washington state (though the movie was shot in British Columbia) who becomes a widow when her husband (Bert Remsen)  gets beat up and killed, and she’s forced to become a prostitute after this. In contrast to her earlier, cheerful persona as Suzanne, Ida is naïve and scared of the world, and Duvall does a good job showing that, as well as when she loosens up. While Julie Christie (Mrs. Miller) is the commanding presence in the scene where she convinces Ida she’ll be better off as a prostitute (pointing out at least now, she’ll be getting paid for it), Duvall manages to keep up with her.

As Keechie in Thieves Like Us.

Duvall also had nice chemistry with Keith Carradine, who brought his own guilelessness to the role of a cowboy (called Cowboy) who comes to town as soon as he’s heard of the whorehouse Mrs. Miller and John McCabe (Warren Beatty) have set up in town, and who becomes a steady client of Ida’s. Perhaps after seeing this, Altman decided to team the two of them up for Thieves Like Us (1974), his adaptation of the novel by Edward Anderson (which had previously been filmed by Nicholas Ray as They Live by Night). In some ways, even though I generally prefer Altman as a director (I’ve never been part of the cult around Ray), I prefer Ray’s version of the story, as there’s a charged romanticism between Farley Granger and Peggy O’Donnell as doomed lovers Bowie and Keechie, respectively. Altman is more interested in recreating the time and place of Anderson’s novel (it has not been made available to stream because of rights issues, as Altman uses radio shows of the period), but Carradine and Duvall again have a nice chemistry together. (Note: This is the one movie Altman and Duvall did together that I didn’t get to rewatch before writing this – I’m basing this on YouTube clips and my memories of seeing this years ago)

As L.A. Joan, with frequent co-star Keith Carradine (Tom), in Nashville.

Duvall then went against type for her next movie for Altman, Nashville (1975), which Claude and I have also discussed. She plays Martha (though she insists on being called “L.A. Joan”), who’s ostensibly in town to visit her uncle, Mr. Green (Keenan Wynn) – who wants her to visit her sick Aunt Esther in the hospital – but who seems more interested in chasing after Tom (Keith Carradine), the self-involved folk singer and one third of the folk trio Bill (Allan Nicholls), Mary (Cristina Raines) and Tom. L.A. Joan seems at first glance to be flirtatious (even with Kenny (David Hayward), the loner who ends up boarding at Mr. Green’s house) and self-involved (when Mr. Green tries to tear her away from Tom to get her to see her aunt, she firmly tells Mr. Green she’s busy). However, upon rewatching the movie, I noticed something about her character I hadn’t noticed before. As I mentioned in our podcast about the movie, perhaps my favorite scene is when Tom is singing “I’m Easy” in a bar, and while L.A. Joan and Opal (Geraldine Chaplin), the (supposed) reporter for the BBC who’s in town, think he’s singing about them – while Mary, who has also slept with Tom, sadly knows he’s not singing about her – Tom is actually singing about Linnea (Lily Tomlin), a married woman (and mother of two) who’s in the bar. While Opal is clueless about this, L.A. Joan, who looks happy at first, turns her head and notices Linnea, and then turns back with a look of sadness in her eyes as she realizes the truth. It’s the kind of off-hand moment Altman specialized in capturing, and allowing Duvall to show that moment gives her a dimension her character might not have had otherwise.

Duvall didn’t get as much to do in Altman’s follow-up to NashvilleBuffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976). She plays the wife of President Grover Cleveland (Pat McCormick), and is only in one sequence in the movie, when the two of them visit the show put on by “Buffalo” Bill Cody (Paul Newman) that purports to tell the “truth” about the old west (in reality, the version of history that makes Cody look like a hero). This tries to subvert our notions of history in the same way that Altman successfully subverted the Western genre in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, but for some reason, Altman and co-writer Alan Rudolph aren’t able to bring it all together. About the only time Duvall gets any chance to show off any of her talent is the rather sweet moment when she introduces a friend of hers, Nina Cavallini (Evelyn Lear), before Nina performs an aria in Italian after the show.

As Millie, with Sissy Spacek (Pinky), in 3 Women.

I’ve found Altman’s attempts to ape Ingmar Bergman, one of the few contemporary directors he liked, to have mixed results, though I will admit 3 Women (1977) is his best effort in that regard, and it also has the side effect of contain what was probably Duvall’s best performance for Altman. She plays Millie, a physical therapist who works at a spa for seniors. While she seems to be good at her job, Millie is oblivious to a lot of things (as Ryan Gilbey writes in the chapter on Altman in his critical study of 70’s movies, It Don’t Worry Me, Millie fits in with other Altman characters who are motor mouths but don’t know much). For starters, Millie doesn’t realize while the patients seem to like her fine, her neighbors believe her cheerful disposition is annoying (they talk about her behind her back). More important, Millie doesn’t seem to realize Pinky (Sissy Spacek), a new hire at the spa, is obsessed with her (whether she’s in love with Millie, or wants to be Millie, or a combination of both, is something Altman and Spacek leave up to us to decide). Millie does act friendly towards Pinky, not just showing her the ropes at work, but also inviting her to live with her, and showing Pinky the places she likes to hang out at, such as a shooting range where Edgar (Robert Fortier),  a stuntman and the husband of Millie’s landlady Willie (Janice Rule) – the “third’ woman of the title – likes to practice at. But then one day, Millie gets upset at Pinky’s meddling in her social life, for which she kicks Pinky out, and that leads to Pinky taking a drastic action, which is when the movie shifts gears.

Altman has said the movie was inspired by a dream he had, but it’s obvious Bergman’s Persona was also a major inspiration, and the comparison isn’t always flattering. Altman and cinematographer Charles Rosher Jr. do get some nice visual effects in the use of water from the pool at the building Millie lives at, but there was always an inner logic to Bergman’s movies (even Persona) that Altman can’t quite pull off. Still, he does know how to showcase Duvall and Spacek. Spacek is a more naturalistic actress than Duvall, which she had shown as early as her first movie, Prime Cut, as well as in Badlands and Carrie (Welcome to L.A., which she did for Altman’s mentor Alan Rudolph, isn’t as good a showcase for her talents, but she still manages to shine), and in her hands, Pinky’s dew-eyed innocence is completely believable (as is her turn away from that when the movie shifts gears). Duvall, again, is more of a personality, but she and Spacek work well together. Plus, Duvall isn’t afraid to make Millie unlikable, and yet she has her moments of self-awareness, as when she she reacts to Pinky’s drastic action, and Duvall does show for all of Millie’s affectations, she does really care about people.

As Olive Oyl, with Robin Williams as the title character, in Popeye.

Popeye was the very first Altman movie I ever saw. It brought Altman and Duvall together with a few other talents; playwright/screenwriter Jules Feiffer (Carnal Knowledge), producer Robert Evans (I’ve always thought he was crap as a person, but he certainly produced some terrific movies), and in his first starring role on film, Robin Williams, playing the title character. Unlike Altman and Feiffer, I was a fan of the Max Fleischer cartoons growing up (now, I confess I find them repetitive), and being only 12 when the movie first came out (I saw it in the theater), I didn’t appreciate how Altman, rather than making a “family” film (like other franchise movies of its type have been since), he was trying to put his own stamp on the material. After rewatching it, I no longer dislike it (it used to be my least favorite Altman movie, along with Quintet and Beyond Therapy, but no longer), though I don’t think it completely works either (Popeye not eating spinach until the end seemed silly, and Williams seems to struggle with the role). Even then, however, I did sense Duvall was just perfect in the role of Popeye’s girlfriend Olive Oyl, not just in the physical resemblance (Duvall originally didn’t want to play the role, as she had actually been teased by being called Olive Oyl when she was younger, but Altman talked her into it), but in the sweet-natured persona she brings to the role. The scene that shows Duvall off best is when she sings the song “He Needs Me” (written, as with all the movie’s songs, by Harry Nilsson) as Olive is sneaking, and dancing, around the dock where Popeye is. The fact she’s singing it as much to herself as she is about Popeye is what makes it so appealing (it’s little wonder Paul Thomas Anderson used the song – and quite effectively – in his movie Punch-Drunk Love).

Popeye proved to be the last collaboration between Altman and Duvall, as they had a falling out for reasons unclear (though he never liked it when actors in his stock company turned down roles, and she apparently turned down the lead female role in A Perfect Couple – which I think is one of his most underrated movies – because she was busy with The Shining; Marta Heflin eventually took the role). And as I mentioned before, Duvall did good work for other directors aside from Altman – she makes the rock critic she played in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall a real person instead of the conceit it was written as, she and Michael Palin are very funny together in recurring roles in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, she showed she could play someone “normal” as Steve Martin’s best friend in Roxanne, Martin’s updating of Cyrano de Bergerac (directed by Fred Schepisi), and she made a memorable cameo as a nurse in Steven Soderbergh’s underrated neo-noir The Underneath. Finally, I do like her performance in The Shining, even if it took me a couple of viewings to appreciate it. Still, along with Faerie Tale Theatre (I never saw any of other, similar anthology shows she produced), I think the best legacy of Duvall’s career is the movies she did with Altman, who allowed the full force of her personality, and acting ability, to come through.