A fundraising campaign to benefit Shelley Duvall has been launched by the daughter of “The Shining” director Stanley Kubrick, after it was revealed earlier this week that Duvall is struggling with mental illness.
Vivian Kubrick started the fundraising campaign on Friday, the same day that an interview with Duvall was slated to air on “Dr. Phil.”
“Showing your love and support for Shelley Duvall by making a donation can start her back on the road to independence and perhaps back to health and for her fans, more superb performances!” the GoFundMe page for the campaign reads.
As of this writing, six hours into the campaign, the fundraising effort has raised a little more than $5,000 of its $100,000 goal from 78 donors.
A preview of the “Dr. Phil” interview that surfaced earlier this week depicted a nearly unrecognizable Duvall, now 67, telling “Dr. Phil” host Phil McGraw that she didn’t believe her “Popeye” co-star Robin Williams, who committed suicide in 2014, was actually dead and that he was merely “shape-shifting.”
In the snippet, Duvall also asserted that she was threatened by “the Sheriff of Nottingham” and that she has a “whirring disc” inside her body.
The footage was met with widespread concern and derision, not least of all by Kubrick, whose father directed Duvall in “The Shining.”
Calling for a boycott of the interview, Kubrick wrote, “You are putting Shelly [sic] Duvall ‘on show’ while she is suffering from a pitiable state of ill health. Unquestionably, this is purely a form of lurid and exploitative entertainment — it’s appallingly cruel” in a Twitter letter to the talk-show host.