SHELLEY WINTERS
Name: Shelley Winters
Birth name: Shirley Schrift
Born: 18 August 1920 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Died: 14 January 2006 Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Shelley Winters (August 18, 1920 - January 14, 2006) was a American actress who
won Academy Awards for her supporting roles in The Diary of Anne Frank and A
Patch of Blue, and a Golden Globe Award for her role in The Poseidon Adventure.
She appeared in dozens of films as well as on stage and television.
Winters was born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Jewish
parents Jonas Schrift, a designer of men's clothing, and Rose (Winters), a
singer. Her family moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was three years
old. She studied in the Hollywood Studio Club, sharing the same bedroom with
another beginner, Marilyn Monroe.
As the New York Times obituary noted, "A major movie presence for more than five
decades, Shelley Winters turned herself into a widely respected actress who won
two Oscars." Winters originally broke into Hollywood as "the Blonde Bombshell,"
but quickly tired of the role's limitations. She washed off her makeup and
played against type to set up Elizabeth Taylor's beauty in A Place in the Sun,
still a landmark American film. As the Associated Press reported, the general
public was unaware of how serious a craftswoman Winters was. "Although she was
in demand as a character actress, Winters continued to study her craft. She
attended Charles Laughton's Shakespeare classes and worked at the Actors Studio,
both as student and teacher."
Her first movie was There's Something About a Soldier (1943). As typical for the
time period, she appeared in a black-and-white film noir role for the 1948 film
Cry of the City, wearing fashionable clothes (see image at top) contrasting to
the impending doom of the film. In 1959, she won an Oscar for Best Supporting
Actress for The Diary of Anne Frank and another for A Patch of Blue (1965).
Notable later roles included her turn as the once gorgeous, alcoholic former
starlet "Fay Estabrook" in Harper (1966) and in The Poseidon Adventure (1972) as
the ill-fated "Mrs. Belle Rosen", for which she received her final Oscar
nomination. Viewers may notice Winters frequently pushing her hair away from her
face while swimming. She later explained that this was to show that she did her
own swimming without the use of a double. (She later reunited with her Poseidon
co-star, Jack Albertson in a number of episodes of Albertson's sitcom Chico and
the Man during the mid-1970s.) Always conscious of her Jewish heritage she had
first learned her trade in the Borscht Belt she donated her Oscar for Anne Frank
to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
As the Associated Press reported, "During her fifty years as a widely known
personality, Winters was rarely out of the news. Her stormy marriages, her
romances with famous stars, her forays into politics and feminist causes kept
her name before the public. She delighted in giving provocative interviews and
seemed to have an opinion on everything."
That led to a second career as a writer. Though not an overwhelming beauty, her
acting, wit, and "chutzpah" gave her a love life to rival Monroe's. In late life,
she recalled her conquests in autobiographies so popular they undermined her
reputation as a serious actor. She wrote of a yearly rendezvous she kept with
William Holden, as well as her affairs with Burt Lancaster and Marlon Brando.
Winters suffered an enormous weight gain later in life, frequently stating that
it was a marketing tool, since there were plenty of prominent normal-weight
older actresses but fewer overweight ones, and her obesity would enable her to
find work more easily. In 1973 Winters even put on a short-lived Broadway
musical review entitled "The Hoofing Hollywood Heifer", co-starring Charles
Nelson Reilly and Bongo, a tap-dancing chimp. Although it closed after only
eight performances, this show was applauded for its sheer campy bravado by many
critics, one of whom stated that Winters was a "Whale of a Talent looking for a
sea of applause big enough to rest her massive girth."
Audiences born in the 1980s knew her primarily for the autobiographies and for
her television work, in which she played a humorous parody of her public persona.
In a recurring role in the early 1990s, Winters played the title character's
grandmother on the ABC sitcom Roseanne.
Name: Shelley Winters
Birth name: Shirley Schrift
Born: 18 August 1920 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Died: 14 January 2006 Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Shelley Winters (August 18, 1920 - January 14, 2006) was a American actress who
won Academy Awards for her supporting roles in The Diary of Anne Frank and A
Patch of Blue, and a Golden Globe Award for her role in The Poseidon Adventure.
She appeared in dozens of films as well as on stage and television.
Winters was born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Jewish
parents Jonas Schrift, a designer of men's clothing, and Rose (Winters), a
singer. Her family moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was three years
old. She studied in the Hollywood Studio Club, sharing the same bedroom with
another beginner, Marilyn Monroe.
As the New York Times obituary noted, "A major movie presence for more than five
decades, Shelley Winters turned herself into a widely respected actress who won
two Oscars." Winters originally broke into Hollywood as "the Blonde Bombshell,"
but quickly tired of the role's limitations. She washed off her makeup and
played against type to set up Elizabeth Taylor's beauty in A Place in the Sun,
still a landmark American film. As the Associated Press reported, the general
public was unaware of how serious a craftswoman Winters was. "Although she was
in demand as a character actress, Winters continued to study her craft. She
attended Charles Laughton's Shakespeare classes and worked at the Actors Studio,
both as student and teacher."
Her first movie was There's Something About a Soldier (1943). As typical for the
time period, she appeared in a black-and-white film noir role for the 1948 film
Cry of the City, wearing fashionable clothes (see image at top) contrasting to
the impending doom of the film. In 1959, she won an Oscar for Best Supporting
Actress for The Diary of Anne Frank and another for A Patch of Blue (1965).
Notable later roles included her turn as the once gorgeous, alcoholic former
starlet "Fay Estabrook" in Harper (1966) and in The Poseidon Adventure (1972) as
the ill-fated "Mrs. Belle Rosen", for which she received her final Oscar
nomination. Viewers may notice Winters frequently pushing her hair away from her
face while swimming. She later explained that this was to show that she did her
own swimming without the use of a double. (She later reunited with her Poseidon
co-star, Jack Albertson in a number of episodes of Albertson's sitcom Chico and
the Man during the mid-1970s.) Always conscious of her Jewish heritage she had
first learned her trade in the Borscht Belt she donated her Oscar for Anne Frank
to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
As the Associated Press reported, "During her fifty years as a widely known
personality, Winters was rarely out of the news. Her stormy marriages, her
romances with famous stars, her forays into politics and feminist causes kept
her name before the public. She delighted in giving provocative interviews and
seemed to have an opinion on everything."
That led to a second career as a writer. Though not an overwhelming beauty, her
acting, wit, and "chutzpah" gave her a love life to rival Monroe's. In late life,
she recalled her conquests in autobiographies so popular they undermined her
reputation as a serious actor. She wrote of a yearly rendezvous she kept with
William Holden, as well as her affairs with Burt Lancaster and Marlon Brando.
Winters suffered an enormous weight gain later in life, frequently stating that
it was a marketing tool, since there were plenty of prominent normal-weight
older actresses but fewer overweight ones, and her obesity would enable her to
find work more easily. In 1973 Winters even put on a short-lived Broadway
musical review entitled "The Hoofing Hollywood Heifer", co-starring Charles
Nelson Reilly and Bongo, a tap-dancing chimp. Although it closed after only
eight performances, this show was applauded for its sheer campy bravado by many
critics, one of whom stated that Winters was a "Whale of a Talent looking for a
sea of applause big enough to rest her massive girth."
Audiences born in the 1980s knew her primarily for the autobiographies and for
her television work, in which she played a humorous parody of her public persona.
In a recurring role in the early 1990s, Winters played the title character's
grandmother on the ABC sitcom Roseanne.