It’s not often that you see an indy film actress in the ticker tape online news, but I only found out about the sad news of Adrienne Shelly’s death in the shadow of the foul play media. Shelly will forever be galvanized in my mind as the woman who could easily trade quips with Martin Donovan in Hal Hartley’s Trust. In Trust (and also Hartley’s Unbelievable Truth) she represented a girl facing the impossibility of adulthood and unwanted responsibility. Although I can’t comment on the rest of her career, those two films were particularly important to 19-year-old me. (She also played Jerry in Factotum, but someone is going to have to help me figure out who this character was: yes, I saw the film but who was Jerry? I don’t remember Adrienne Shelly in this film. I am a loser.)
She was found hung to death on Wednesday, November 1st. What seemed to be a puzzling suicide to those who knew her has turned into an unbelievable and unconscionable murder. A 19-year-old man has been arrested and charged with her murder.
Adrienne Shelly had recently written and directed a film entitled Waitress due for a 2006 release.
Get Walker Reader in your inbox. Sign up to receive first word about our original videos, commissioned essays, curatorial perspectives, and artist interviews.