Shelley Winters

 ( 1920 Births ) 

In 1960, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Mrs. Van Daan in George Stevens's film adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). She donated her award statuette to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Winters was in much demand as a character actor now, getting good roles in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) and The Young Savages (1961). She received excellent reviews for her performance as the man-hungry Charlotte Haze in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962).

Winters returned to Broadway on The Night of the Iguana (1962), playing Bette Davis' role. She performed Off Broadway in Cages by Lewis John Carlino in 1963. Many of her roles now had a sexual component: in The Chapman Report (1962) she played an unfaithful housewife and she played madams in The Balcony (1963) and A House Is Not a Home (1964). She appeared in Wives and Lovers (1963) and episodes of shows such as Alcoa Theatre, Ben Casey, and Thirty-Minute Theatre. Winters was featured in the Italian film Time of Indifference (1964) with Rod Steiger and Claudia Cardinale, and had one of the many cameos in the religious epic The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), again for George Stevens. Winters won her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar in A Patch of Blue (1965) for her performance as Rose-Ann D'Arcey, the cruel and vulgar mother of an illiterate blind girl. She had supporting roles opposite Michael Caine in Alfie (1966) and as the fading, alcoholic former starlet Fay Estabrook in Harper (1966). She returned to Broadway in Under the Weather (1966) by Saul Bellow which ran for 12 performances. Winters played "Ma Parker" the villain in Batman. She was in a TV version of The Three Sisters (1966) and had roles in Enter Laughing (1967) for Carl Reiner, Armchair Theatre, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (several episodes), The Scalphunters (1968) for Sydney Pollack, Wild in the Streets (1968), Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968), Arthur? Arthur! (1969), and The Mad Room (1969).

Winters was top-billed in The Devil's Daughter (1973) for TV. She had a supporting role in Blume in Love (1973) for Paul Mazursky and Cleopatra Jones (1973) and leading parts in Big Rose: Double Trouble (1974) and The Sex Symbol (1974). Winters guest-starred on McCloud and Chico and the Man and was seen in Poor Pretty Eddie (1975), That Lucky Touch (1975), Journey Into Fear (1975), Diamonds (1975), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) for Paul Mazursky, The Tenant (1976) for Roman Polanski, Mimì Bluette... fiore del mio giardino (1977) with Monica Vitti, Tentacles (1977), An Average Little Man (1977) with Alberto Sordi, Pete's Dragon (1977), The Initiation of Sarah (1978), and King of the Gypsies (1978). She starred in a 1978 Broadway production of Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, which only had a short run. Winters starred in the Italian horror film Gran bollito (1977) and played Gladys Presley in Elvis (1979) for TV. She was in The Visitor (1979), City on Fire (1979), The Magician of Lublin (1979) for Menahem Golan, The French Atlantic Affair (1979) and an episode of the ABC series Vega$, with Vega$ star Robert Urich . In 1980, Winters published the best-selling autobiography Shelley: Also Known As Shirley She followed it up in 1989 with a second memoir, Shelley II: The Middle of My Century.

Winters' 1980s performances included Looping (1981), S.O.B., episodes of The Love Boat, Sex, Lies and Renaissance (1983), Over the Brooklyn Bridge (1984), Ellie (1984), Déjà Vu (1985), Alice in Wonderland (1985), and The Delta Force (1986). She did The Gingerbread Lady on stage. She had a starring role in Witchfire (1986) and was credited as executive producer. She was in Very Close Quarters (1986), Purple People Eater (1988), and An Unremarkable Life (1989).

Her final performances included Touch of a Stranger (1990), Stepping Out (1991) with Liza Minnelli, Weep No More, My Lady (1992), The Pickle (1993) for Mazursky, and The Silence of the Hams (1994). Later audiences knew her primarily for her autobiographies and for her television work, in which she usually played a humorous parody of her public persona. In a recurring role in the 1990s, Winters played the title character's grandmother on the sitcom Roseanne. Her final film roles were supporting ones: She played a restaurant owner and mother of an overweight cook in Heavy (1995) with Liv Tyler and Debbie Harry for James Mangold; an aristocrat in The Portrait of a Lady (1996), starring Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich; and an embittered nursing home administrator in 1999's Gideon. She was in comedies such as Backfire! (1995), Jury Duty (1995), and Mrs. Munck (1995) as well as Raging Angels (1995). Winters made an appearance at the 1998 Academy Awards telecast, which featured a tribute to Oscar winners past and present.

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 a conventional beauty, she claimed that her acting, wit, and chutzpah gave her a sex life to rival Monroe's. Her claimed partners included William Holden, Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster, Errol Flynn, and Marlon Brando.