Shelley Duvall’s 34-Year Partner Dan Gilroy Recalls the Actress' Final Days: ‘We Found Moments of Joy’ (Exclusive)

"The mental challenges made her, I think, unaware of what was going to happen," Gilroy tells PEOPLE about 'The Shining' actress

It was 1990 when Dan Gilroy first stepped onto the set of Mother Goose Rock n’ Rhyme, a made-for-TV musical starring Shelley Duvall. The lead singer of the band Breakfast Club — which featured Madonna in the early '80s — was brought on to make music for the movie. Unbeknownst to him, Gilroy was about to meet his life partner Duvall, who he would spend the next 34 years with.

“We fell in love on the set,” Gilroy, 77, tells PEOPLE. “We were pretty inseparable from then on.”

Their three decades together, many of which were spent in the roaring hill country of Blanco, Texas, included a lot of animals. “Little tiny birds, finches, parrots, dogs, cats, lizards. It was like a traveling menagerie,” Gilroy quips. In the months leading up to Duvall’s death due to complications from diabetes on July 11 at age 75, Gilroy says much time was spent reminiscing about where it all began. “We found moments of joy,” he says. “I'd bring my computer in, we’d watch some shows…. Mother Goose Rock 'n Rhyme and things she had produced over the years and those gave some comfort.”

Now in a new phase of life, Gilroy is reminiscing about his past, too. The singer — who dated Madonna, 66, and taught her to play the guitar during their time in Breakfast Club — is putting up items for sale at Guernsey’s 60th anniversary Downtown auction on Sept. 25, including some of Madonna’s equipment that she wrote her earliest songs on, and signed. “It’s time,” he says.

Related: Remembering Shelley Duvall's Life and Career in Photos

“I never had a dog growing up, but when I met Shelley and fell in love with her, she had maybe seven dogs,” Gilroy tells PEOPLE about The Shining actress. Since their move to Texas in 1996, many of the animals have passed away, but their three parrots — Austin, Birdie and Taxi — will likely outlive him by 30 years. “They whistle all the time and sometimes use her voice,” he says. “That makes me both happy and sad.”

Opening up about Duvall’s mental health “challenges,” Gilroy recalls a significant shift that occurred 18 years ago. “One month everything got really weird and paranoid, she felt under attack and asked the neighbors to come over and bring weapons to protect us,” he says. “Her mother's second husband was a former FBI agent, and she just felt under attack off and on from then on.”

Five years later, a decision made by Duvall’s family dramatically changed her life, according to Gilroy. “Her brother and late mother invited her to Houston for dinner, a four-hour drive. When we arrived, two guys forcibly took her to Houston Methodist Hospital for about a week to 10 days,” he remembers. “She put up such a fuss they did discharge her with a diagnosis of diabetes and dementia, but it made a rift in the family and trust went out the window. It scared the hell out of her.”

From then on, her diabetes and dementia slowed her down. “We stopped being able to walk, she was bedridden for a long time, but we could still drive — she loved to drive,” Gilroy tells PEOPLE. “She never thought about not being here or that the end is near, but at some point, it was just too far gone. The mental challenges made her, I think, unaware of what was going to happen and just as well, maybe.”

Duvall’s last night left Gilroy with deep regret. “I had a room next to hers, and in her final months she would call me three or four times a night because she needed to change position or be cleaned up or wanted a beverage,” he recalls. “The night before she died, I told her, ‘Shelley, I have an interview tomorrow. I can't keep waking up like this.’ I found her the next morning and I couldn't stop holding her and kissing her even though she wasn't there anymore.”

Still impacting the acting world, Duvall’s final film The Forest Hills is set to release in early October. “She never stopped thinking of herself as an actor,” Gilroy says about her final acting gig. “It lifted her spirits and it made her aware that, ‘This is my latest thing.’ She was in many movies and she felt like it connected her to the rest of her career, which was quite fabulous.”

Related: Madonna's Ex Dan Gilroy Reveals Why She Asked Him Not to Share Her 'Poetic' Love Letters Publicly (Exclusive)

After 34 years of spending “nearly every day together,” Gilroy knows there was something special about Duvall. “There was a mix of smartness and innocence about her that I saw in no one else ever. She was always just so enthusiastic and so much fun every day.”

He adds, “And that was Shelley. She made it all an adventure.”

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