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People named Shelley Winters
Below are 4 people with the first name Shelley and the last name Winters. Try the Winters Family page if you can't find a particular Collaborative Biography in your family tree.
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BEVERLY HILLS, CA (AP) - Shelley Winters, the forceful, outspoken star who graduated from blond bombshell parts to dramas, winning Academy Awards as supporting actress in "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "A Patch of Blue," has died.
She was 85.
The actress sustained her long career by repeatedly reinventing herself. Starting as a nightclub chorus girl, she advanced to supporting roles in New York plays, then became famous as a Hollywood sexpot.
A devotee of the Actors Studio, she switched to serious roles as she matured, and she won her Oscars portraying mothers. Still working well into her 70s, she had a recurring role as Roseanne's grandmother on the 1990s TV show "Roseanne."
In 1959's "The Diary of Anne Frank," she was Petronella Van Daan, mother of Peter Van Daan and one of eight real-life Jewish refugees in World War II Holland who hid for more than a year in cramped quarters until they were betrayed and sent to Nazi death camps. The socially conscious Winters donated her Oscar statuette to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
In 1965's "Patch of Blue," she portrayed a hateful, foul-mouthed mother who tries to keep her blind daughter, who is white, apart from the kind black man who has befriended her.
Ever vocal on social and political matters, Winters was a favored guest on television talk shows, and she demonstrated her frankness in two autobiographies: "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1980) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989).
She wrote openly in them of her romances with Burt Lancaster, William Holden, Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and other leading men.
"I've had it all," she exulted after her first book became a best seller. "I'm excited about the literary aspects of my career. My concentration is there now."
Typically Winters, she also had a complaint about her literary fame: While reviewers treated her book as a serious human document, she said, talk show hosts Phil Donohue and Johnny Carson "only want to know about my love affairs."
Winters, whose given name was Shirley Schrift, was appearing in the Broadway hit "Rosalinda" when Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn offered her a screen test. A Columbia contact and a new name -- Shelley Winters -- followed, but all the good roles at the studio were going to Jean Arthur in those days.
Her early films included such light fare as "Knickerbocker Holiday," "Sailor's Holiday," "Cover Girl," "Tonight and Every Night" and "Red River."
Her contract over, Winters returned to New York, replacing Celeste Holm as Ado Annie in "Oklahoma!"
She would soon be called back and signed to a seven-year contract at Universal. She vamped her way through a number of potboilers for the studio, including "South Sea Sinner," with Liberace as her dance-hall pianist, and "Frenchie," as wild saloon owner Frenchie Fontaine, out to avenge her father's murder.
The only hint of her future as an actress came in 1948's "A Double Life" as a trashy waitress strangled by a Shakespearian actor, Ronald Colman. The role won Colman an Oscar.
"A Place in the Sun" in 1951 brought her first Oscar nomination and established her as a serious actress. She desperately sought the role of the pregnant factory girl drowned by Montgomery Clift so he could marry Elizabeth Taylor. The director, George Stevens, rejected her at first for being too sexy.
"So I scrubbed off all my makeup, pulled my hair back and sat next to him at the Hollywood Athletic Club without his even recognizing me because I looked so plain. That got me the part," she recalled in a 1962 interview.
She received her final Oscar nomination, for 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure," in which she was one of a handful of passengers scrambling desperately to survive aboard an ocean liner turned upside down by a tidal wave. By then she had put on a good deal of weight, and following a scene in which her character must swim frantically she charmed audiences with the line: "In the water I'm a very skinny lady."
Although she became in demand as a character actress after her first Oscar nomination, Winters continued to study her craft. She attended Charles Laughton's Shakespeare classes and worked at the Actors Studio, both as a student and teacher. She appeared on Broadway as the distraught wife of a drug addict in "A Hatful of Rain" and as the Marx Brothers' mother in "Minnie's Boys."
"Night of the Hunter" (Laughton's only film as director), "Executive Suite," "I Am a Camera," "The Big Knife," "Odds Against Tomorrow," "The Young Savages," "Lolita," "The Chapman Report," "The Greatest Story Ever Told," "A House Is Not a Home," "Alfie," "Harper," "Pete's Dragon," "Stepping Out" and "Over the Brooklyn Bridge."
Winters' second and third marriages were brief and tempestuous: to Vittorio Gassman (1952-1954) and Anthony Franciosa (1957-1960). The combination of a Jewish Brooklynite and Italian actors seemed destined to produce fireworks, and both unions resulted in headlines.
A daughter, Vittoria, resulted from the marriage to Gassman. She became a successful physician.
Shelley D Winters of Raceland, Lafourche County, LA was born on September 6, 1949, and died at age 53 years old on January 30, 2003.
Shelley M Winters of Burton, Genesee County, MI was born on February 10, 1971, and died at age 16 years old on October 15, 1987.
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Similar Winters names
Winters biographies alphabetically beginning with Sandy and ending with Sid Winters.
Sandy Winters (Born circa 1961)
Sanford Winters
Sara Winters
Sarah Winters
Saul Winters (Born circa 1921)
Savannah Winters (Jul 1, 1901 - Dec 1976)
Savilla Winters (Jan 17, 1875 - Nov 1971)
Scott Winters
Scottie Winters (Jan 10, 1893 - Dec 1983)
Sean Winters
Searville Winters
Sebron Winters
Seidi Winters (Feb 9, 1951 - Jul 24, 2007)
Selena Winters
Selina Winters
Selma Winters (Jun 20, 1909 - Sep 1991)
Semarris Winters (Born circa 1976)
Sena Winters (Jan 1, 1927 - Jul 7, 2009)
Serlena Winters (Jun 24, 1932 - Jan 20, 1982)
Seth Winters
Sevilla Winters (Feb 21, 1914 - May 22, 1990)
Sewell Winters (Jul 22, 1899 - Aug 1975)
Seymour Winters
Shakira Winters (Sep 20, 2009 - Oct 15, 2009)
Shana Winters (Nov 11, 1966 - Dec 2, 2008)
Shannon Winters
Sharen Winters
Shari Winters (Born circa 1978)
Sharon Winters
Shauna Winters (Born circa 1966)
Shawn Winters
Shawna Winters (Born circa 1988)
Sheila Winters
Shelba Winters (Nov 23, 1936 - Aug 12, 2007)
Shelby Winters
Sheldon Winters
Shelia Winters
Shellee Winters (Born circa 1978)
Shelley Winters
Shelly Winters
Sheri Winters (Born circa 1969)
Sherman Winters
Sherri Winters
Sherrie Winters (Born circa 1956)
Sherrin Winters (Born circa 1946)
Sherry Winters
Sheryl Winters (May 13, 1943 - Feb 14, 2005)
Shirlee Winters (Jan 12, 1935 - Feb 5, 2010)
Shirlene Winters (Oct 6, 1936 - Dec 26, 2000)
Shirley Winters
Sibyl Winters
Sicily Winters (Nov 25, 1898 - May 1981)
Sid Winters (Aug 12, 1908 - Jun 1965)
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