Shelley Duvall, the waifish, wide-eyed actress who became a face of 1970s film, demonstrating her range in acclaimed movies such as “Nashville” and “3 Women” before delivering an unforgettable performance — chased by an ax-wielding Jack Nicholson — in the horror touchstone “The Shining,” died July 11 at her home in Blanco, Tex. She was 75.

Publicist Gary Springer, a friend of Ms. Duvall’s, said the cause was complications of diabetes.

Ms. Duvall was among the most distinctive actresses to emerge out of the “New Hollywood” era of the late 1960s and ’70s, when directors were making personal, idiosyncratic films that ran counter to the old studio mold. Discovered by director Robert Altman at a party in Houston in 1970, she made her debut that year in his black comedy “Brewster McCloud,” playing the love interest of a young recluse (Bud Cort) who lives at the Astrodome and dreams of taking flight with a pair of wings.

Over the next decade, she became a staple of Altman’s dialogue-rich, ensemble-driven movies, playing a mail-order bride in the western “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1971), the mistress to a bank-robbing Keith Carradine in “Thieves Like Us” (1974), a groupie in “Nashville” (1975) and the wife of President Grover Cleveland in “Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson” (1976). She later starred opposite Robin Williams as Olive Oyl in Altman’s live-action adaptation of “Popeye” (1980).

Ms. Duvall received some of the best reviews of her career for “3 Women” (1977), a dreamlike psychological drama — also starring Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule — that brought her the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

“I thought: boy, if it’s this easy, why doesn’t everybody act?” she told the New York Times in April, looking back on her early success.

Ms. Duvall also starred in director Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980), adapted from Stephen King’s best-selling horror novel, as Wendy Torrance, the wife of an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic (Nicholson) who becomes unhinged while working as the caretaker at a Colorado hotel.