What an odd, sad tale.
On November 1st, actress and director Adrienne Shelly was found dead in her Greenwich Village office. It was an apparent suicide as she was found hanging in the shower. But the police didn't close the case right away, and five days later the report came out that it was in fact a murder and an arrest had been made, including a confession.
She was busy editing a film at her office, which is in a Manhattan apartment building. There is construction going on at the address, and apparently Shelly complained about the noise. I guess she complained to the wrong guy on the wrong day, because the ninteen-year-old construction worker who confessed to the crime says he hit her; so brutally that it killed her. He then took the body back upstairs to her office and staged the suicide.
Ick.
I had always liked Adrienne on screen since she burst onto the independent scene in a couple of Hal Hartley's movies in the early 1990s: The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Trust (1990). I really love her in both of those movies, especially Trust where she plays a weird pregnant teenageer who latches on to Martin Donovan's principled loner.
Unlike some of her contemporaries such as Parker Posey, Catherine Keener, and Lili Taylor, Shelly never really broke out from the small indie projects. But she did work steadily, including Sleep with Me (1994), The Road Killers (1994), Revolution #9 (2001) and this year's Factotum (2006) as well as a string of guest appearances on television series like NBC's "Law & Order" and HBO's "Oz". You can also see her as herself in Searching for Debra Winger (2002), actress Rosanna Arquette's documentary about how the film industry treats actresses as they age. She moved behind the camera to become a producer, writer and director as well, helming the independendt features Sudden Manhattan (1997) and I'll Take You There (1999). She was in the editing process on her latest, Waitress, starring Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Jeremy Sisto, Cheryl Hines and Andy Griffith when she was murdered. No word yet in the wake of the tragedy on what will happen to that project.
What an odd and awful end to her life. She had just turned forty this summer. R.I.P.
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
Last edited by Holden Pike; 12-13-17 at 05:25 PM.
Reason: repairing busted image links