Shelley Winters... glamor girl to character actress

The story goes that George Stevens told her to take the part in The Diary of Anne Frank so she'd become a character actress and work the rest of her life. I've never seen any of her earlier work except for A Place in the Sun. Was she cast a lot as sex symbol roles when she was young? What did she look like in "I Am a Camera?"

She always said that - but she was hardly a beauty. She and Marilyn Monroe live together so I think in her mind, because she was young and dyed her hair, she was a "bombshell". Uh..not quite. Not ugly - but not a bombshell like she always talked about.
She was like a poor man's Denise Darcel.
What R1 said. She was attractive at least.
http://www.hindu.com/fr/2006/01/20/images/2006012003570401.jpg
She played the Marisa Berensen role in "I Am A Camera" apparently.
op
She scored a lot of prime movie actor cock in her time. Plus, she was a helluva an actress.
She was a great actress. She had to struggle to keep the weight off and then she just kind of gave up and figured she could use her talent alone to get her parts. Loved her in A Patch of Blue and Diary of Anne Frank.
Decent actress but never has a leading star. She also became the butt of many jokes after the 1970s and really never recovered. I mean even kids knew fat Shelley Winters jokes. I think she would have been great in a Fellini movie.
To paraphrase Pauline Kael, she's just so whiny and bovine in "A Place in the Sun" that killing her seems like euthanasia. Kael also hinted that Dreiser's themes might have been clearer if Winters and Elizabeth Taylor had switched roles. But she was wonderful later on, e.g., "Next Stop, Greenwich Village."
She was a wonderful guest on TV talk shows in the 1960s. Unfailingly honest and hilarious. Though she did gain weight for The Diary of Anne Frank she was nowhere near fat the way fat is determined now. That came later with The Poseidon Adventure.
In the water I'm a very thin lady!
Shelley%2C%20doing%20the%20breast%20stroke
[quote]She was like a poor man's Denise Darcel. Huh? Somebody call me?
http://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/b62/d7c/b62d7c57-be5b-4663-942b-2650eeb7ac75
Wasn't the term "bombshell" more about the body than the face? Seems the young Shelly with the slim waist and big tits would qualify.
[quote]"She scored a lot of prime movie actor cock in her time." Whose?
[quote] To paraphrase Pauline Kael, she's just so whiny and bovine in "A Place in the Sun" that killing her seems like euthanasia. I felt the same way about that other Shelly -- Shelly Duvall -- in The Shining.
Shelley aged the way normal women do, she went through the stages of life. She was great on Rosanne.
She's always struck me as both brilliant and a bit ridiculous. Even in The Night of the Hunter there's something comical about her performance. Her best was definitely Lolita. I think she could have made an interesting Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
She went from blonde bombshells in B Westerns to A list neurotic ingenues in A Double Life and A Place in the Sun until finding her true niche with Diary of Anne Frank as a brilliant character actress with a wide range (no pun intended!) in Lolita, Alfie, A Patch of Blue, Night of the Hunter and so many other great roles. Can anyone please post a link to her appearance as Mystery Guest on What's My Line? She's quite hilarious even there.
Tony Franciosa, cock #2
She played sort of trailer trash bombshells, not the leading lady type sexy roles. She was in A Double Life with Ronald Colman where she played a sexy but sad waitress/mistress he didn't care about. She was working class sexy.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1107401728/tt0039335
She was never beautiul, but she was young once, and nailed every leading man in Hollywood while she was. Why don't more actresses follow her career path - aging normally and working forever in character role? These days they all seem to believe they can hold onto the glamour roles forever, and ruining their faces in the attempt. Jamie Lee Curtis is the only one I can think of who's done it successfully.
r16, she did play Martha on tour, at least in summer stock. I saw her at the Northland Playhouse outside of Detroit. Best Martha I ever saw, but the shopping bag ladies in the audience didn't get the play and were mighty restless. Shelley gave us all the stink eye during the curtain call.
She had William Holden every x-mas eve for years!! didn't she also have a long affair with Burt Lancaster. In her book, she wrote how she and Lancaster ran off to Europe to escape any publicity and ran into Shirly McClaine and Robert Mitchem in the midst of their affair. I thought Shelley Winters was a hoot in every film she was in.
Her affair with Holden, in which they met up once a year for many years to just fuck was the basis for the hit 1970s Broadway comedy Same Time, Next Year. Sadly, she never got to play herself in the stage play or the film of same.
Ms Ellen Burstyn
She also got to bang, repeatedly, Sean Connery at his hunkiest. Hit the sheets with Albert Finney when he was a brand new acting sensation on Broadway. Did the nasty with one of the most beautiful of men in his prime, Sterling Hayden. Married Tony Franciosa and Vittorio Gassman. She liked to have a good time.
rumor she liked it in the ass?