Shelley Winters

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Shelley Winters
Image:Shellywinters.JPG
Winters in Cry of the City (1948)
Birth name Shirley Schrift
Born August 18 1920(1920-08-18)
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Died January 14 2006 (aged 85)
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Spouse(s) Paul Meyer (1942-1948)
Vittorio Gassman (1952-1954)
Anthony Franciosa (1957-1960)
Gerry DeFord (m. 2006)

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.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Winters was born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Missouri,[1] the daughter of Jewish parents Jonas Schrift, a designer of men's clothing, and Rose (Winters), a singer.[2][3] 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.

[edit] Career

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). 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.

[edit] Personal life

She was married four times. Her husbands were:

  1. Capt. Mack Paul Mayer, whom she married on New Years Day, 1943; they divorced in October 1948. Mayer was unable to deal with Shelley's "Hollywood lifestyle" and wanted a "traditional homemaker" for a wife. Winters wore his wedding ring up until her death and kept their relationship very private.
  2. Vittorio Gassman, whom she married on April 28, 1952; they divorced on June 2, 1954. They had one child, Vittoria, a physician, who practices internal medicine at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut. She was Winters' only child.
  3. Anthony Franciosa, whom she married on May 4, 1957; they divorced on November 18, 1960.
  4. Gerry DeFord, married by Sally Kirkland on January 14 2006, hours before her death.

Shortly before her death, Winters married long-time companion Gerry DeFord, with whom she had lived for nineteen years. Though Winters' god-daughter objected to the marriage, the actress Sally Kirkland who is an ordained minister, performed the wedding ceremony for the two at Winters' deathbed. Non-denominational last rites for Winters were performed by Kirkland, a minister of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. Winters also had a romance with Farley Granger that became a long-term friendship. She starred with him in the 1951 film, Behave Yourself!, as well as in a 1957 television production of A. J. Cronin's novel, Beyond This Place.

Winters died on January 14, 2006 of heart failure at the Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills at the age of 85 a few hours after she married DeFord; she had suffered a heart attack on October 14, 2005. Ex-husband Anthony Franciosa died of a stroke five days later.

[edit] Academy Awards and nominations

Year Award Film Won?
1951 Best Actress in a Leading Role A Place in the Sun No
1959 Best Actress in a Supporting Role The Diary of Anne Frank Yes
1965 Best Actress in a Supporting Role A Patch of Blue Yes
1972 Best Actress in a Supporting Role The Poseidon Adventure No

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1750 Vine Street, and was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1992.

[edit] Credits

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television

[edit] Theater

Summer Stock Plays

  • The Taming of the Shrew (1947)
  • Born Yesterday (1950)
  • Wedding Breakfast (1955)
  • A Piece of Blue Sky (1959)
  • Two for the Seasaw (1960)
  • The Country Girl (1961)
  • A View from the Bridge (1961)
  • Days of the Dancing (1964)
  • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1965)

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.rootdig.com/1930census/1930_shelly_winters.jpg
  2. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/39/Shelley-Winters.html
  3. ^ http://www.adherents.com/people/pw/Shelley_Winters.html

[edit] External links

Awards
Preceded by
Wendy Hiller
for Separate Tables 		Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1959
for The Diary of Anne Frank 		Succeeded by
Shirley Jones
for Elmer Gantry
Preceded by
Kim Stanley
for Cardinal Act of Mercy 		Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or a Movie
1964
for Two is the Number 		Succeeded by
Lynn Fontanne
for The Magnificent Yankee
Preceded by
Lila Kedrova
for Zorba the Greek 		Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1965
for A Patch of Blue 		Succeeded by
Sandy Dennis
for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Preceded by
Ann-Margret
for Carnal Knowledge 		Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1973
for The Poseidon Adventure 		Succeeded by
Linda Blair
for The Exorcist
cv:Шелли Уинтерс

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