"It was so cold I almost got married." -- Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters (August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over fifty years, until her death in 2006. Two-time Academy Award winner, Winters is probably most remembered for her roles in A Place in the Sun, The Big Knife, Lolita, The Night of the Hunter, Alfie, and The Poseidon Adventure.
"All marriages are happy. It's trying to live together afterwards that causes all the problems.""Every now and then, when you're on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live.""I have bursts of being a lady, but it doesn't last long.""I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience.""I was so cold the other day, I almost got married.""I'm not overweight. I'm just nine inches too short.""In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It's trying to live together afterwards that causes the problems.""Now that I'm over sixty I'm veering toward respectability.""Whenever you want to marry someone, go have lunch with his ex-wife.""Where do you go to get anorexia?"
Winters was born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Jewish parents Rose (née Winter), a singer with The Muny, and Jonas Schrift, a designer of men's clothing. Her family moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was three years old. Her sister Blanche Schrift later married George Boroff, who ran The Circle Theatre (now named El Centro Theatre). She studied at The New School in New York City.
Shelley (Shirley) was the cousin of actor Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz), and as described in her autobiography, "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley", she suggested that he try acting, and was helpful in getting him started in the theater when he got out of the Navy after WWII.
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." She studied in the Hollywood Studio Club, and in the late 40s, she shared the same apartment with another beginner, Marilyn Monroe.
Her first movie was What a Woman! (1943). Working in films (in mostly bit roles) through the 1940s, Winters first achieved stardom with her breakout performance as the victim of insane actor Ronald Colman in George Cukor's A Double Life, in 1948. She quickly ascended in Hollywood with leading roles in The Great Gatsby (1949) and Winchester 73 (1950), opposite James Stewart. But it was her performance in A Place in the Sun (1951), a departure from the sexpot image that her studio, Universal Pictures, was building up for her at the time, that first brought Winters her acclaim, earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Throughout the 1950s, Winters continued in films, most notably in Charles Laughton's masterpiece, 1955's Night of the Hunter, with Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish. She also returned to the stage on various occasions during this time, including a Broadway run in A Hatful of Rain, in 1955-1956, opposite future husband Anthony Franciosa. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for The Diary of Anne Frank in 1960, and another award, in the same category, for A Patch of Blue in 1966.
Notable later roles included her lauded performance as the man-hungry Charlotte in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita; starring opposite Michael Caine in Alfie; and as the once gorgeous, alcoholic former starlet "Fay Estabrook" whose emotional vulnerability the titular hero so cruelly exploits in Harper (both 1966); in The Poseidon Adventure (1972) as the ill-fated Belle Rosen (for which she received her final Oscar nomination); and in Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976). She also returned to the stage during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably in Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana. Unfortunately, her prestigious work during this period tended to be undermined by her forays into camp kitsch with films like 1968's Wild in the Streets and 1971's Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?. Always conscious of her Jewish heritage—she had first learned her trade in the Borscht Belt—she donated her Oscar for The Diary of 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 Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster and Marlon Brando.
Winters suffered a significant 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.
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 1990s, Winters played the title character's grandmother on the ABC sitcom Roseanne. Her final film roles were supporting ones - she played a restaurant owner and mother of an overweight cook in Heavy (1995) alongside Liv Tyler and Debbie Harry, John Gielgud's wife in The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and a bitter nursing home administrator (whose charges included Charlton Heston, Carroll O'Connor and Shirley Jones) in 1999's Gideon.
Winters was married four times; her husbands were:
Captain Mack Paul Mayer, whom she married on New Years Day, 1942; 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 .
Vittorio Gassman, whom she married on April 28, 1952; they divorced on June 2, 1954. They had one child, Vittoria born February 14, 1953, a physician, who practices internal medicine at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut. She was Winters' only child.
Anthony Franciosa, whom she married on May 4, 1957; they divorced on November 18, 1960.
Gerry DeFord, on January 14, 2006, hours before her death.
Hours 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 performed the wedding ceremony for the two at Winters' deathbed. Kirkland, a minister of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, also performed non-denominational last rites for Winters.
Winters also had a romance with Farley Granger that became a long-term friendship (according to her autobiography Shelley Also Known As Shirley). 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; she had suffered a heart attack on October 14, 2005. Her third ex-husband Anthony Franciosa died of a stroke five days later.
