Adrienne Shelly

Adrienne Levine (June 24, 1966 – November 1, 2006), usually known by the stage name Adrienne Shelly (sometimes credited as Adrienne Shelley), was an American actress, film director, and screenwriter.

She became known from acting in independent films such as Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Trust (1990).

Shelly's breakthrough came when she was cast by independent filmmaker Hal Hartley as the lead in The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Trust (1990).

Trust was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, where Hartley's script tied for the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

Shelly guest-starred in a number of television series including Law & Order, Oz and Homicide: Life on the Street, and played major roles in over two dozen off-Broadway plays, often at Manhattan's Workhouse Theater.

During the 1990s, Shelly segued toward a career behind the camera.

She wrote and directed 1999's I'll Take You There, in which she appeared alongside Ally Sheedy.

She won a U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Film Discovery Jury Award in 2000 for direction of the film, and Prize of the City of Setúbal: Special Mention, at the Festróia (Tróia International Film Festival) held in Setúbal, Portugal, for best director.

They met in 2001 on Match.com, were married in 2002, and had a daughter, Sophie (born 2003), who was two years old at the time of her mother's death.

Shelly had written the film Waitress during the time she was pregnant with her daughter, Sophie.

Shelly described herself as an "optimistic agnostic".

In 2005 she appeared in the film Factotum starring Matt Dillon.

Police initially said Shelly's death in 2006 was a suicide.

Her husband, Andy Ostroy, insisted on a re-evaluation, which resulted in a conviction of a construction worker.

The man had been working in her office apartment building; he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter.

Shelly's husband established the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, which awards scholarships, production grants, finishing funds, and living stipends to artists.

The Women Film Critics Circle gives an annual Adrienne Shelly Award in her honor to the film that it finds "most passionately opposes violence against women."

Shelly was born Adrienne Levine in Queens to Sheldon Levine and Elaine Langbaum.

She had two brothers and grew up on Long Island.

She began performing when she was about 10 at Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center.

Shelly made her professional debut in a summer stock production of the musical Annie while a student at Jericho High School in Jericho, New York.

She enrolled in Boston University, majoring in film production, but dropped out after her junior year and moved to Manhattan.

Shelly was found dead at approximately 5:45 p.m on November 1, 2006.

Her husband, Andy Ostroy, discovered her body in the Abingdon Square apartment in Manhattan's West Village that she used as an office.

Ostroy had dropped her off at 9:30 a.m. He became concerned that Shelly had not been in contact during the day and asked the doorman to accompany him to the apartment.

They found her body hanging from a shower rod in the bathtub with a bed sheet around her neck.

Although the door was unlocked and money was missing from her wallet, the NYPD believed Shelly had taken her own life.

An autopsy found she had died as a result of neck compression.

Ostroy insisted that his wife was happy in her personal and professional life, and would never have committed suicide leaving her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter motherless.

His protests over the following days prompted further examination of the bathroom, which revealed a sneaker print in gypsum dust on the toilet beside where her body had been found.

The print was matched to other shoe prints in the building where construction work had been done the day of Shelly's death.

Diego Pillco, a 19-year-old construction worker from Ecuador, was arrested on November 6 and confessed on tape to attacking Shelly and staging the fake suicide.

Pillco's original version claimed that when Shelly demanded the construction noise be kept down, he threw a hammer at her.

Afraid she might make a complaint that could result in his deportation, since he had immigrated into the United States illegally, he followed her back to her apartment.

Pillco said Shelly slapped him when he grabbed her at her apartment door and he retaliated by punching her in the face, knocking her to the ground where she hit her head and fell unconscious.

Believing he had killed her, he then hanged her to make it appear a suicide.

She wrote, directed, and co-starred in the 2007 Waitress, a posthumous film that later became a Broadway show.

Her final work was writing, directing, co-set- and costume-designing, and acting in the film Waitress, starring Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Shelly's daughter, Sophie, has a cameo at the end of the film.

Shelly, who took her professional surname from her late father's given name, was married to Andy Ostroy, the chairman and CEO of the marketing firm Belardi/Ostroy.