Shelley Winters (August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress.
Winters was born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Missouri , the daughter of Jewish parents - Jonas Schrift and Rose Winter. Her family moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was 3 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). 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. (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 50 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 Heffer", co-starring Charles Nelson Reilly and Bongo. a tap-dancing chimp. Although it closed after only 8 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.
She was married four times. Her husbands were:
Shortly before her death, Winters married long-time companion Gerry DeFord, with whom she had lived for nineteen years. Though Winters' daughter objected to the marriage, the actress Sally Kirkland, 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 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.
Year
Award
Film
Won?
Best Actress in a Leading Role
A Place in the Sun
No
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
The Diary of Anne Frank
Yes
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
A Patch of Blue
Yes
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
The Poseidon Adventure
No
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1750 Vine Street.
She was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1992.
Awards
Preceded by
Wendy Hiller
for Separate Tables
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
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
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
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
for The Poseidon Adventure
Succeeded by
Linda Blair
for The Exorcist
