Adrienne Shelly 1966-2006



So I just found out that Adrienne Shelly passed away on November 1st in her office. Ms Shelly had been best known for her parts in Hal Hartley’s film “The Unbelievable Truth”,which was her debut film, and “Trust”. She was a very interesting actress, who was lately concentrating on directing. She appeared in ”Factorum” this year as Jerry, and has appeared in many other films. Her directorial debut was “Sudden Manhattan” which was made in 1996.

Born in Queens and raised on Long Island, Shelly lived in Tribeca with her family and had been focusing more on writing and directing lately and caring for her daughter. Shelly recently wrote and directed a film called "Waitress," which starred Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion. Ms Shelly had just sent her most recent film, Waitress, off to the Sundance selection committee.

Ms Shelly made a big impression on me when I saw her in Hartley’s film “Trust”. She brought to the role a kind of vulnerability that really made me interested in her character. I always thought that when Ms Shelly was up on the screen you couldn’t look away. "She was beautiful, and projected the essence of a smart and slightly lost young generation"*. Since she was close to my age I guess I identified traits in her characters with my own generation that seemed to not know everything & didn’t have all the answers. This is a blow to the independent film community, and she will be sadly missed. There is a Newsday article , which has more, and over at Filmmaker Magazine is another write up.

* Filmmaker Magazine quote (Scott Macaulay)

**Final Post-script

Indiewire posted that the NYC police have arrested a Brooklyn construction worker for the murder of Ms Shelly. More infor here at CBS/TV

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