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Shelley Winters 1920 - 2006

Shelley Winters was born on August 18, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri United States, and died at age 85 years old on January 13, 2006 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, CA. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Shelley Winters.

Shelley Winters

August 18, 1920

St. Louis, Missouri, United States

January 13, 2006

Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, California, United States

Female

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Shelley Winters' History: 1920 - 2006

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Introduction

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.
08/18

1920

Birthday

August 18, 1920

Birthdate

St. Louis, Missouri United States

Birthplace

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Professional Career

Shelley Winters Born August 18, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA Died January 14, 2006 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (heart failure) Birth Name Shirley Schrift Nickname The Blonde Bombshell Height 5' 4" (1.63 m) Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling, a sister, Blanche. Her father moved the family to Brooklyn when she was still young so that he, a tailor's cutter, could find steadier work closer to the city's garment industry. An unfailing interest in acting began quite early for Shelley, and she appeared in high school plays. By her mid- to late teens she had already been employed as a Woolworth's store clerk, model, borscht belt vaudevillian and nightclub chorine, all in order to pay for her acting classes. During a nationwide search in 1939 for GWTW's Scarlett O'Hara, Shelley was advised by auditioning director George Cukor to get acting lessons, which she did. Apprenticing in summer stock, she made her Broadway debut in the short-lived comedy "The Night Before Christmas" in 1941 and followed it with the operetta "Rosalinda" (1942) initially billing herself in both shows as Shelley Winter (without the "s"). Within a short time, Shelley pushed ahead for a career out west. Hollywood proved to be a tough road. Toiling in bit roles for years, many of her scenes were excised altogether during her early days. Obscurely used in such movies as What a Woman! (1943), The Racket Man (1944), Cover Girl (1944) and Tonight and Every Night (1945), her breakthrough did not occur until 1947, and it happened on both the stage and big screen. Not only did she win the replacement role of Ado Annie Carnes in "Oklahoma!" on Broadway but, around the same time, scored excellent notices on film as the party girl waitress who ends up a victim of deranged strangler (and Oscar winner) Ronald Colman in the critically-hailed A Double Life (1947) directed by Cukor. From this moment, she achieved somewhat earthy film stardom, playing second-lead broads who often met untimely ends (as in Cry of the City (1948) and The Great Gatsby (1949)), or tawdry-black-stockinged and feather-boa-adorned leads, as in South Sea Sinner (1950) in which her eclectic co-stars included Macdonald Carey and Liberace! As a tarnished glamour girl and symbol of working-class vulgarity in Hollywood, Shelley was about to be written off in pictures altogether when one of her finest movie roles arrived on her front porch. Her best hard-luck girl storyboard showed up in the form of depressed, frumpy-looking Alice Tripp, a factory girl seduced and abandoned by wanderlust Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951). Favoring gorgeous society girl Elizabeth Taylor who is totally out of his league, Clift is subsequently blackmailed by Winters' pathetic (and now pregnant) character into marrying her. For her desperate efforts, she is purposely drowned by Clift after he tips their canoe. The role, which garnered Shelley her first Oscar nomination, finally plucked her out of the sordid starlet pool she was treading and into the ranks of serious femme star contenders. But not for long. Winters just couldn't escape the lurid bottle-blonde quality she instilled in her characters. During what should have been her peak time in films were a host of badly-scripted "B" films. The obvious, two-dimensional chorines, barflies, floozies and gold diggers she played in Behave Yourself! (1951), Frenchie (1950), Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), Playgirl (1954), and also Mambo (1954), in which co-starred second husband Vittorio Gassman, pretty much said it all. She grew extremely disenchanted and decided to return to dramatic study. Earning membership into the famed Actors' Studio, she went to Broadway and earned kudos, thereby reestablishing her reputation as a strong actress with the drug-themed play "A Hatful of Rain" (1955). Co-starring in the show was the up-and-coming Anthony Franciosa, whom she took as her third husband in 1957. Her renewed dedication to pursuing quality work was shown by her appearances in a number of heavyweight theater roles including Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1955). In later years, the Actors' Studio enthusiast became one of its most respected coaches, shaping up a number of today's fine talents with the Strasberg "method" technique. By the late 1950s, she had started growing in girth and wisely eased into colorful character supports. The switch paid off. After a sterling performance as the ill-fated wife of sadistic killer Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955), she scored big in the Oscar department when she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the shrill and hypertensive but doomed Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). From this period sprouted a host of revoltingly bad mamas, blowsy matrons, and trashy madams in such film fare as Lolita (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), The Balcony (1963) Wives and Lovers (1963), and A House Is Not a Home (1964). She topped things off as the abusive prostitute mom in A Patch of Blue (1965) who was not above pimping her own blind daughter (the late Elizabeth Hartman) for household money. The actress managed to place a second Oscar on her mantle for this riveting support work. With advancing age and increasing size, she found a comfortable niche in the harping Jewish wife/mother category with loud, flashy, unsubtle roles in Enter Laughing (1967), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) and, most notably, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). She earned another Oscar nomination for "Poseidon" while portraying her third drowning victim. At around the same time, she scored quite well as the indomitable Marx Brothers' mama in "Minnie's Boys" on Broadway in 1970. In the 1970s and 1980s, she developed into an oddly-distracted personality on TV, making countless talk show appearances and becoming quite the raconteur and incessant name-dropper with her juicy Hollywood behind-the-scenes tales. Candid would be an understatement when she published two scintillating tell-all autobiographies that reached the bestsellers list. "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1981) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989) detailed dalliances with Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, William Holden, Sean Connery, and Clark Gable, to name just a few. Thrice divorced (her first husband was a WWII captain, while her only child, Vittoria, came from her second union to Italian stallion Gassman), she remained footloose and fancy-free after finally breaking it off with the volatile Franciosa in 1960. Her stormy marriages and notorious affairs, not to mention her ambitious forays into politics and feminist causes, kept her name alive for decades. She worked in films until the beginning of the millennium, her last film being the easily-dismissed Italian feature La bomba (1999). She enjoyed Emmy-winning TV work and had the recurring role of Roseanne Barr's tell-it-like-it-is grandmother on the comedienne's self-named sitcom. Her last years were marred by failing health and, for the most part, she was confined to a wheelchair. Suffering a heart attack in October of 2005, she died in a Beverly Hills nursing home of heart failure on January 14, 2006. It was reported that only hours earlier on her deathbed she had entered into a "spiritual" union with her longtime companion of 19 years, Gerry McFord; a relationship of which her daughter disapproved. Gregarious, brazen, ambitious, and completely unpredictable -- that would be Shelley Winters, the storyteller, whose amazing career lasted over six colorful decades. Spouse (4) Gerry DeFord (13 January 2006 - 14 January 2006) ( her death) Anthony Franciosa (4 May 1957 - 18 November 1960) ( divorced) Vittorio Gassman (28 April 1952 - 2 June 1954) ( divorced) ( 1 child) Capt. Mack Paul Mayer (1 January 1942 - 1 October 1948) ( divorced) Trade Mark (3) Later on, played mostly overweight, loud and somewhat tacky women Often played neurotic, needy women Brassy sexuality
01/13

2006

Death

January 13, 2006

Death date

Heart failure

Cause of death

Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, California United States
Death location

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Obituary

Shelley Winters passed away in 2006 at age 86. She was born in 1920. 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. Winters died of heart failure early Saturday at The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills, her publicist Dale Olson said. She was hospitalized in October after suffering a heart attack. 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, 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." Among her other notable films: "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." 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. Robert Mitchum once told her: "Shelley, arguing with you is like trying to hold a conversation with a swarm of bumblebees." The revelations in her autobiographies provided endless material for interviewers and gossip writers. She wrote of an enchanted evening when she and Burt Lancaster attended "South Pacific" in New York, dined elegantly, then repaired to his hotel room. "This chance meeting proved to be the beginning of a long but painful romance," she wrote. "Despite the immediate and powerful chemistry between us, the love and the friendship, some wise part of me knew that he would never abandon his children while they were young and needed him." She also told of a dalliance with William Holden after a studio Christmas party. In a glamorous, real-life version of the play "Same Time, Next Year," they continued their annual Yuletide rendezvous for seven years. She wrote that despite their intimacy, they continued to refer to each other as "Mr. Holden" and "Miss Winters," and when they met on the set of the 1981 film "S.O.B." she said, "Hello, Mr. Holden." He smiled and replied, "Shelley, after your book, I think you should call me Bill." Shirley Schrift was born on Aug. 18, 1920, and grew up in New York City's borough of Brooklyn, where she appeared in high school plays. "My childhood is a blur of memories," she wrote in the first of her autobiographies. "Money was so scarce in my family that at the age of 9 I was selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door. "It was during this stage of my life that I developed a whole fantasy world; reality was too unbearable. Every chance I got, I was at the movies. I adored them." Working as a chorus girl and garment district model helped finance her drama studies. She gained practical training by appearing in plays and musicals on the summer Borscht Circuit in the Catskill mountains. During the Detroit run of a musical revue, she married a businessman, Paul "Mack" Mayer on Jan. 1, 1942. He entered the Army Air Corps, and after the war, the pair found they had little in common. They divorced in 1948. 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.

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Shelley Winters lived 13 years longer than the average family member when died at the age of 85.

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6 Memories, Stories & Photos about Shelley

Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

08/18/2024

Shelley Winters

What a terrific pose.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

04/20/2021

Shelley Winters.

Movie Publicity Shot.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Shelley in MINNIE'S BOYS with Lewis Stadlen as Groucho Marx.

Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

04/20/2021

Shelley in MINNIE'S BOYS with Lewis Stadlen as Groucho Marx.

A wonderful photograph from the Broadway Musical.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

04/20/2021

Shelley Winters.

A very alluring actress.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

04/20/2021

Shelley Winters.

Was in motion pictures for more than 50 years.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

17.8k+ favorites

07/17/2017

Lou Jacobi and Shelley Winters

A photo of Lou Jacobi, Shelley Winters and Joseph Schildkraut in The Diary of Anne Frank.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Shelley Winters' Family Tree & Friends

Shelley Winters' Family Tree

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Shelley Winters Aug 18, 1920 - Jan 13, 2006

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Other Biographies

Other Shelley Winters Biographies

Winters, Shelley (Sep 6, 1949 - Jan 30, 2003) Winters, Shelley (Feb 10, 1971 - Oct 15, 1987)

Winters, Shelley (Aug 18, 1920 - Jan 14, 2006)

Other Winters Family Biographies

Winters, Pauline Winters, Hubert (Born 1912) Winters, Hazel Montrue (Born Oct 24, 1892) Winters, William (Born 1817) Winters, Daniel (Born 1844) Winters, Rosa (Born 1894) Winters, Lute (Born 1884) Winters, Frank (Born Feb 13, 1918) Winters, F Janet (Feb 6, 1918 - Jan 8, 2005) Winters, Grace (Jan 21, 1887 - Jun 1966)

Winters, Catherine (Mar 17, 1902 - Mar 14, 1997) Winters, Alice (Jul 8, 1883 - May 1969) Winters, Kurt (Jun 29, 1898 - Jun 1987) Winters, Sarah (Nov 9, 1884 - Jun 1977) Winters, Lillian (Jan 20, 1915 - Aug 19, 2002) Winters, Henry (Sep 6, 1953 - Aug 7, 2003) Winters, Jacqueline (Nov 9, 1971 - Mar 11, 2006) Winters, John (Jan 4, 1900 - Feb 1978) Winters, Larry (May 8, 1914 - May 12, 1989) Winters, Matilda (Mar 5, 1923 - Oct 1971)

About the AncientFaces Community

Shelley Winters 1920 - 2006

Shelley Winters' History: 1920 - 2006

Introduction

Birthday

Professional Career

Death

Obituary

6 Memories, Stories & Photos about Shelley

Shelley Winters' Family Tree & Friends

Shelley Winters' Family Tree

Shelley's Friends

Other Shelley Winters Biographies

Other Winters Family Biographies