Shelley Winters

In the water she's a very skinny lady!

I think most people under the age of 35 have no clue who she is.

Years ago, when AOL was all the rage, I read one guy's profile that said, "If we meet, and you say you have a swimmer's build, I don't expect it to be like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure."

I thought she was great in Lolita. Should have been nominated. You have to admit, OP, she had a very long career, and played everything from glamour girls to dotty old women.

She was a cunt to Roseanne.

[quote]She was a cunt to Roseanne.

Roseanne started it by eating all the chocolate covered cherries in the makeup room.

I also think Shelley was one of the queens of the caftan. That's all she wore in the 1970s.

She is for nostalgia for extra-eldergays and nursing home spinsters.

Now is the era of the most handsome, fabulous, amazing, and the embodiment of perfection: Luke Evans

Let's start with the basics.

She played Shelley Summers on Here's Lucy.

Somehow Ronald Coleman and Shelley Winters together in a movie seems so wrong.

Like putting Liz Taylor and Seth Rogan together.

Didn't Coleman strangle the wrong woman in that one?

She could always play a good Frau whether in Lolita, Poisedon Adventure, or Roseanne.

My favorite Shelley movie is A Patch of Blue.

Did Shelley Winters ever play the matriarch of a circus or carny folks? My friend swears this film exists.

Oh Lawdy!

I think you're confusing her with Joan Crawford's BERSERK!

Shelley was in that as well, in a smaller role as Jodie.

A bowlegged bitch of a Brooklyn blonde.

She won an Oscar for playing a hooker in A Patch of Blue

She also played a hooker in The Balcony, House is not a Home and Cages

At her best, none better. At her worst, still lots of fun to watch.

Lee Grant said that she was basically a nasty, nasty cunt. It appears they got along many, many years later. But I was shocked to read what a bitch Shelley Winters was, and how nasty she was to others. I loved Shelley's autobiographies and her! But now she is tainted in my eyes.

Joan Rivers had her on with Norman Mailer on the Tonight Show.

Joan always selected great guest combinations

Watch Shelley (no surprise) try to take over the interview, watch Joan (no surprise) get the laugh.

She wasn't a pretty woman, that's for sure.

[quote]Watch Shelley (no surprise) try to take over the interview, watch Joan (no surprise) get the laugh.

Thanks for posting that. It's a great clip. And it probably shows the reason why Joan didn't get the Tonight Show gig full time. When you sit in the main chair, the point is to keep the focus on you and the guest.

And what the heck is Joan wearing? It does her no favors.

Shelley Winters looks like Ada the cunt kicker Hobson from Another World.

R14, your friend might be thinking of 1981's LOOPING.

I think her best performance was in LOLITA -- she was outstanding, and deserved an Oscar.

She could be terrific, by some of her more unrestrained performances are another story!

Shelley and her husband Tony Franciosa would constantly bring up their Actors Studio training, but in my opinion, they represented the worst of "Method" acting. Their idea of good acting is loud, pannicky, neurotic, and high-strung, with all the associated tics and mannerisms set on high. Terribly unmodulated performances.

Well, the memory of Shelley Winters always puts a smile on my face. She was always entertaining.

[quote]Shelley and her husband Tony Franciosa would constantly bring up their Actors Studio training

At least she turned in some notable performances (whether good or bad) in high profile movies. Was he ever more than a B actor?

R29, Tony Franciosa was Oscar nominated for "A Hatful of Rain," and had a brief run of A-List pictures like George Cuckor's "Wild is the Wind," "The Long Hot Summer," and "The Naked Maja," but he was undone by his combative personality and difficult reputation. In her memoirs, "Naked Maja" co-star Ava Gardner wrote that she liked him (so much so they had an affair, according to Shelley), but he drove her crazy with his "what's my motivation here?" Method acting crap: "The lights would be set, the cast would be standing in front of the camera waiting for Tony to start the scene, and he'd be standing off to the side, carrying on as if he were choking to death and nearly vomiting before he would come on."

Supposedly, Shelley's one-weekend-a-year affair with Bill Holden (or was it Burt Lancaster?) was the basis for the hit play Same Time, Next Year.

r26 Thank you so much. That's the one! Heard so much about her performance I will have to see it immediately!

After a certain point Shelly never had to worry about working. She was always offered scripts. She was the ultimate insider and constantly brought up her Marilyn connections. I was surprised to read [above] she was a bitch. I always assumed she was easygoing - that's how she comes across on Carson. I'll bet she wasn't bitchy to anyone that was important in the business - I think she knew how to play the game and whose ass to kiss ...

"There’s a name for her. God bless her. But, she was a first class bitch."

"She can be so selfish. Of course, I make a point never to get into fights with other actors. It's destructive. It depletes your energy. But Shelley can drive others to almost punch her in the nose."

Finally something I can contribute through the sister-in-law chain.

Tony Franciosa was bipolar and it was discovered late in life.

She definitely wasnt a B lister.......maybe a somewhat faded star in her golden years, but well respected and revered regardless of what dreck she starred in....she was a double oscar winner to boot.

She was quite good in Next Stop Greenwich Village.

[quote]She was quite good in Next Stop Greenwich Village.

For me, she was good only in that she was playing a variation of her stock character Jewish mother, which she began in "The Diary of Anne Frank." All the yenta roles belonged to her.

She credited herself with a lot of stuff in her books. Nearly married to Farley Granger? Please. Long term affair with Burt Lancaster? Unbelievable. She's full of shit.

In Night Of The Hunter, OWNED by Robert Mitchum, she was the woman you wanted to see dead. I hand it to her to have made that desperate character unsympathetic in such a manner that your attention on the children was never lost to her death. Sure she took Laughton's direction - absolutely - but she got it and she played it quite well. That movie still gives me the creeps and I love watching it for Mitchum's blood curdling performance. But i consistently appreciate how Shelley's performance builds the momentum.

[quote]Long term affair with Burt Lancaster? Unbelievable. She's full of shit.

I actually believe that Burt used her as a cum dumpster. When you need a quick fuck and all the regulars aren't around, why not go over to Shelley's place? But I really wonder if her story in the autobio is true. She says that Marlon Brando came over to fuck her and she was really despondent over Burt. Marlon grabbed up all the pictures of Burt she had and walked nude down the hall to throw them in the dumpster.

Can you imagine opening your door and seeing a nude Marlon Brando walking down the hall carrying an armful of Burt Lancaster pictures?

[quote] Can you imagine opening your door and seeing a nude Marlon Brando walking down the hall carrying an armful of Burt Lancaster pictures?

I can try imagine it. But I can masturbate to it. You straight women and lesbians will never have that.

I actually saw this happen in real time. Shelley Winters vs. Oliver Reed on the Tonight Show. Legendary train wreck of epic proportions.

Shelley gave her first Oscar to the Anne Frank House in Holland and it remains there on display.

I heard the easiest lay in Hollywood was Peggy Lee. Burt could've taken it there. She's much better looking than Shelley. Shelley's voice alone is such a turnoff.

[quote]Shelley gave her first Oscar to the Anne Frank House in Holland and it remains there on display.

As usual, Shelley ran her mouth about it. Before she won, she said she'd donate it. Then when she actually did win, it took something like a year to turn it over and Otto Frank practically had to pull it out of her hands when she presented it.

I've been to the AFH and seen the Oscar. You used to be able to touch it, but they've put it behind glass now.

[quote]I heard the easiest lay in Hollywood was Peggy Lee. Burt could've taken it there. She's much better looking than Shelley. Shelley's voice alone is such a turnoff.

Maybe Pegs was out of town that day. Anyway, even if Burt didn't fuck her, she published both autobios when Marlon was still alive and he didn't refute any of it. And she mentions being fucked by him at least twice, once in New York and once in Hollywood. And Gassman and Franciosa married her, so she must have been able to keep the mouth shut long enough to keep them happy.

I bet Arlene Francis totally pissed off Anthony Franciosa. "I can't remember the name of Shelley Winters' husband."

And you'll notice at the end, Shelley exits with her mink wrap. Can't leave it in the dressing room in case one of the stagehands steals it.

Does anyone remember the "old" Century City mall in west l.a, ? I was in Broadway (old dept store). There was a sale on sheets (it used to be called a 'white' sale ).

I saw a very disheveled and seemingly loaded Shelley Winters pawing through the merchandise . I don't know where I got the nerve to ask for an autograph . She scribbled her name on an index card.

r24 I think Joan's wearing standard 80s horrible clothing; that outfit looks like the mother of Seinfeld's puffy shirt.

I wouldn't say she lost control of the interview; Shelley was going to barge on through and Norman was nice enough to talk to her; Joan by re-arranging the flowers, smoking and reading the book, she got the laugh.

We'll never know if Joan would have gotten The Tonight Show; I'm just glad she got to revisit it with Jimmy Fallon before her untimely death.

Shelley wrote in her memoirs about fucking William Holden. When she arrived on the set of S.O.B. and encountered Holden, she demurely greeted, "Well, hello, Mr. Holden," to which he replied, "Shelley, after what you wrote about me in your book, you can call me Bill."

A little story about Shelley but a good one. She was really good friends with Skip E. Lowe, who was the inspiration for Martin Short's Jiminy Glick. The Hollywood Kids were the up and coming gossip stars and the leader of the group was a stuck up queen named Lance. He went up to Shelley and Skip E. said something. Lance told him "I'm talking to Shelley, not you", to which Shelley said "if you want to talk to me, you'd better talk to him, too." I have to say I liked her after that.

Lee Grant (as previously noted) Elsa Lanchester and Debbie Reynolds all related stories in their autobiographies about how difficult Shelley Winters could be; still, she must have known how far to go with certain people, because the longevity of her career and the people she worked with is truly impressive.

This "Tonight Show" clip always makes me smile.

Jeanne Cooper gave an interview once in which she recalled yelling at Brenda Dickson for being late to the Y&R set once. She said Brenda wouldn't talk to her after that. Jeanne said in the interview, "I said to her, 'if you don't like it, pretend I'm Shelley Winters.'"

I don't fully get it, but it sounded funny.

There was a small Mexican cafe on Robertson in LA - I think it was either at Melrose or Third - I think called "Sundance Cafe," One time I saw Shelley there. She lunch and sat down to eat. About a half hour later, as we were leaving, her friend arrived, and she ordered a second lunch and ate with him.

R44 Oliver Reed was such a wonderfully bitchy cunt. Shelley came across as the hag drunk at the end of the bar.

There's the classic story of her taking a shit on stage during an acting exercise at The Actor's Studio. The assignment was to evoke a very personal moment.

She also failed to clean up her own shit once she was done.

A classy broad.

Oliver Reed was the gayest acting straight queen ever. He really put down that fat hussy with his snotty little quips. He was definitely an Empress.

Oliver was quite the grande dame.

Shelley got away with a lot of bad behavior over the years because she was a genuinely witty woman. As a starlet, she was very well-read and outspoken, a rare bird in 1950s Hollywood. She had opinions about literature, politics, psychology, etc., and expressed them with wit.

As she aged, the humor became more based on her spontaneous and sometimes scattered outbursts, but she was always a fun interview on the talk shows. Her unpredictability was very welcome back then.

I know her from 'Roseanne' and 'A Place in the Sun'

[quote]She was a cunt to Roseanne.

No she wasn't, Roseanne's character loved her and Roseanne had nothing but praise for her off the show:

[quote]"If she had only a line in the show, she would end up acting out an entire scene from an old classic she had been in, or else she would start telling sex stories of Hollywood, or else she would tell us secrets about Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys, as she had been Marilyn's roommate for a number of years," Roseanne wrote in her 2011 book, "Roseannearchy: Dispatches From the Nut Farm." "She did everything like that for hours. The only thing she didn't do is ever once say her line right. I loved that part. It was hilarious to me, and I enjoyed her so much."

She and Diane Ladd were good friends. Now THAT was a batshit crazy friendship I would have loved to heard, even once.

I always thought her line readings on 'Roseanne' were hilarious.

I always forget who played who's mother. Shelley or Estelle Parsons. Was one really old enough to be the other's mother?

Here is Queen Oliver doing another interview. Reed talks about Shelley Winters and the incident on The Tonight Show.He ends it with quite a crash and a bang.

R65 Shelley was Estelles mother. And no they were too close in age.

One of the Roseanne Thanksgiving episodes, John Goodman seemed to get a heartfelt and spontaneous burst of laughter out of Shelley: he went to hug her as she was leaving and she said "Now don't you get fresh with me, Dan" and he replied "I ain't getting fresh with you, I'm just frisking you for silverware, you crazy old bat!" Based on her reaction, I always thought that scene was ad-libbed

Carson must have loved her because he had her on a lot but I remember one time (I'm old) she was on and started nagging him to produce a play she really wanted to do (I think it was Neil Simon's floppo "The Gingerbread Lady" which he later turned into the movie "Only When I Laugh") Shelley got real pushy about it and Johnny got noticeably uncomfortable and tried to change the subject.

Can you imagine how smelly her twat was? Blech!

She was the one that lied and said Jerry "Leave It To Beaver" Mathers died in Vietnam. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Shelley could have played Sally Spectra on the big screen

My siblings and I loved her in "What's the Matter with Helen?", because my mother's name was Helen.

Shelley told this great story about Elizabeth Taylor in one of her books. They were making A Place in the Sun and both had the day off. (They also weren't in any scenes together). So they were hanging out by the swimming pool in the hotel they were staying in. Shelley was writing a letter and asked Elizabeth, who was sun-bathing in a lounger, what the day's date was. Liz said she didn't know. So Shelley noticed a Hollywood Reporter on the table next to where Liz was lounging, said, "Elizabeth, dear, there's a Hollywood Reporter right next to you. Can you grab it and please tell me the date?" Liz responded, "Oh, that won't do you any good. It's yesterday's paper".

I always loved that story.

Shelley Winters and Estelle Parsons were only two years apart.

Shelley lied. If Liz and Shelley weren't in any scenes together, why would they have been staying in the same hotel? They wouldn't have been called in to work on any of the same days.

Shelley is in the footage of the Hollywood premiere of A Star is Born (1954). Alas she appeared to have no date.

[quote]If Liz and Shelley weren't in any scenes together, why would they have been staying in the same hotel? They wouldn't have been called in to work on any of the same days.

Shelley was a conniver and probably talked the producers into paying for her hotel long after she finished shooting. She talks in her autobio about going to the screening of the daily rushes. She says she sat on one side of the director and Liz sat on the other side of him. And he would tell them why he chose one shot over another. So I have no doubt that somehow Shelley was poolside with Liz.

And in the r74 story, I can't help but think Liz was only half listening to Shelley (I mean Shelley could get on one's nerves) or she was just fucking with Shelley because she was thinking "Haul your ass out of that lounger and look yourself."

I remember Shelley Winters claiming she coached Madonna on some acting role (SPEED-THE-PLOW, maybe?) and Madonna publicly disputing this assertion in a letter to "Vanity Fair" (which the magazine printed).

I'd actually be embarrassed to claim I gave Madonna ANY acting tips on any project she has been in/tarnished. Conversely, if I were Madonna, I'd jump at the chance to blame someone else for my horrible acting choices.

Shelley sounds like a lying old twat. Whore.

Age was also known as Shirley.

If Shelley gave acting tips to Madonna in Speed-The-Plow, Madonna must have ignored her. Madonna sucked in that show. I mean, really, really sucked like worse than anything you've ever seen. And also, that's when I wrote off Frank Rich as a critic. In his later book, he recanted his review praising her, but it showed he was just another star struck fan who laid aside his objectivity.

Her armpits smelled like kreplach.

Her autobiography was a wonderful read. I don't think I read the 2nd one.

I am realizing that it will be quite hard to track down a copy of Looping 1981 (get it?-some rollercoaster humor right there). It seems to have joined the carnival of lost films. Any DLers have any helpful suggestions?

[italic]Pete's Dragon[/italic] was proof Stanislavsky was a fraud, a hoke, a charlatan and a joke.

r79 she said on Inside the Actors Studio that they wanted to hire her to coach Madonna in Shanghai Surprise but she didn't do it because she didn't feel you can teach acting that way. (not sure what she meant by that quote, I think she meant that you have to learn it before hand and can't just be taught when you are in a film.)

did you like Helen Reddy though r87?

Yeah, I just wish they'd have let someone who actually made the film edit it.

I'm so confused.

[quote] About a half hour later, as we were leaving, her friend arrived, and she ordered a second lunch and ate with him.

When she wrote her first book in 1980, I was wandering through Beverly Hills while on vacation and there she was, at the Crown Books, doing a book signing. Seeing the opportunity to pick up a Christmas gift for a friend, I went in and bought a copy and she signed it. Not a huge crowd. She looked like a middle-aged housewife with many chins, but one thing that always stuck with me was that someone had put a pint of Thrifty ice cream on the table next to her (Thrifty was a chain of drug stores with a branch next door) . After each signing, while the next person in line was walking up to the table, she'd grab a big spoonful of ice cream and shove it in her mouth.

I took a photo of her gobbing ice ream and enclosed it with the book as a gift. Wish I'd kept a copy.

I remember that bookstore r92 and Thrifty too. I saw Paula Prentiss at the Thrifty when I went there once circa 1990.

Is it still there? What's in the bookstore?

And since all DL threads inevitably lead back to [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic] in some way, shape or form, Roland mentioned her autobiography once on [italic]Golden Palace[/italic].

100k just to teach madge how to find a mark?

It's interesteing how your post, OP, detgeriorated pretty quickly into the "trashed" category. So I probably won't read this thread. I shrug at your put down of her performance in Lolita because she was perfect. That kid would have totally had that exact mother. Her portrayal of a suburban housewife with cultural pretentions was just fucking brilliant. Everybody she see her in Next Stop, Greenwich Village, if anyone has seen that you know how great she could be.

*everybody should see her

I always enjoy Shelley Winters. She reminds me of my Grandma.

She was freaking hilarious, and a great actress in many movies.

Here's an eldergay who hated working with Shelley.

R100 love that old queen

I was working in the ER at a large LA hospital in my younger days and she came in with a friend who had been rushed in by ambulance because she passed out at Shelley's "Beverly Hills house" (apparently she always called it that). Shelley was grand, as you'd expect. Funny and friendly to all the staff, she asked for a phone and ordered 5 pizzas and some 3 dozen Cokes for the staff, hoping of course that this would get her friend some special care. For the 20 or 30 minutes that our interaction lasted, I was in awe of her. She was curious about others and asked questions, of course never ceasing to be the center of attention just by virtue of being Shelley in the ER.

She won over an entire generation, at least, in The Poseidon Adventure. How we wept for Mrs. Rosen!

I would see her frequently and was invited a few times to eat with her table at the Silver Spoon diner.

She had the ability to make anyone feel special and didn't put on airs. As she said as she nudged me one day, "Ah, I'm just Shelley."

I've heard that when, "The Poseidon Adventure" was screened at San Francisco's, Castro Theatre, years ago, the audience gets a good laugh when Mrs. Rosen, dives into the water. Can any DL'ers confirm that??

She was only 50 when she made Poseidon. Two years younger than Jennifer Aniston, for reference.

Shelley on the set of "Hotel" listening repeatedly to Betty Lynn's recording of "Memory" between her multiple meltdowns is worthy of "Hollywood Babylon".

My whole family are big Shelley Winters fans. I loved her in Lolita, & agree she should’ve been nominated. I remember seeing her on one of the talk shows in the ‘80s (Donahue?) where she related a story about the time she had to use the N word in a movie (patch of blue I think) & how she had such problems with that, given her history with the civil rights movement & participating in marches, etc. I think she’s great! Very colorful life she led.

She eventually got stuck playing (or overplaying) mostly crass and/or whiny, shrill, irritating characters. Some of her earlier performances, where she's not overdoing it, are fairly watchable, though she makes her character in PLACE IN THE SUN so pathetic (more so than the character in the novel) that her death comes off as a mercy killing. LOLITA is probably the only crass character she played that was enjoyable for me. I can't stand her in ANNE FRANK. I can generally deal with her in small doses only.

I think last time we had a Shelley thread there was mention that she gave Jane Campion a hard time on The Portrait of a Lady.

Winters was one of those actresses who decided to just steamroll her way through projects and expect directors to do whatever she wanted...just because. Her judgement was far from flawless.

After watching her caterwauling in movies like BLOODY MAMA, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN, and others I did my best to avoid her films altogether.

Debbie Reynolds hated working with Shelley on their 1971 hagsploitation thriller "What's the Matter with Helen?" Debbie said she was cray-cray on the set and cost her money. Here they are 10 years later talking about it on the Merv Griffin Show.

I loved Shelley Winters in The Chapman Report as a suburban housewife who was having an affair and getting ready to leave her husband.

Her scene with the interviewer of the sex book......is really some great stuff!

Carl Reiner directed her in Enter Laughing (1967) which was adapted from his play. He called her a colossal pain in the ass on the set.

[R18], to this day I can't watch "A Patch of Blue." The cruelty they treated that young lady with shatters me almost to the point of catatonia (there are many who if they were aware of this, would jump at a chance to accompany me to a screening of it). Winters was also brilliant in, "Let No Man Write My Epitath."

[quote]R19 She also played a hooker in The Balcony

Excuse me... she played a MADAM.

A little [italic]respect,[/italic] if you don’t mind!

Shelly Winters is the moderately rich man's Sylvia Miles.

[quote] Shelley lied. If Liz and Shelley weren't in any scenes together, why would they have been staying in the same hotel? They wouldn't have been called in to work on any of the same days.

Why can't two actors in the same film stay in the same hotel even if they have no scenes together? I don't get what you mean. They both went on location for the scenes at the lake, for ex. They didn't appear together in any scenes in the film.

I don't buy that story about the newspaper and Elizabeth Taylor. That's an old joke. Shelley's autobiography was good, very entertaining, but you have to use your judgment reading it, to separate the real stories from the tall stories.

This guy, very nice guy, does a lot of video tours of unusual LA attractions, and other places/cities. He knew Shelley and he shows her house and talks about her here. It's funny when he shows the sanpshot because he doesn't look like that now, he's thinner. Anyhow start it at around 11:20. He says toward the end she had dementia. Anyhow, some interesting stories about Shelley from a friend.

Didn't she purposely take a shit on stage while rehearsing a play?

No, sometimes you just get carried away & can't control your bowels or your bladder when you're up there.

Shelley can be so over-the-top it makes you stop watching the movie. What was that one where she played the mother of the young guy who becomes president on a platform of institutionalizing anybody over 30? There wasn't a piece of scenery left unchewed on that set. Even in quality films, like A Place In The Sun, you just kept hoping Monty Clift would bump her off.

Did she ever give a real honest-to-God low key, understated performance?

Winters also said the "n" word in Cleopatra Jones.

One of the most famous Winters stories is when she attended the Actors Studio in NY. Legend has it that she was in an exercise called Private Moments where the performer does something they only do in private. Shelley took a dump on the stage, pulled out a Kleenex from her purse, wiped herself, pulled up her panties and left a hell of a surprise for the janitor.

R40 She was married to 2 good looking men Tony Franciosa and Vittorio Gassman

Good performances in The Night of the Hunter, The Diary of Anne Frank, Lolita, Alfie and The Poseidon Adventure and she appeared in a remarkable variety of films: Wild in the Streets, Bloody Mama, Odds Against Tomorrow, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Cleopatra Jones, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, The Tenant . . .

R124 That was "Wild in the Streets". Shelley was atypically restrained (and pretty good) in the 1971 TV movie "A Death of Innocence". If you're bored, you can watch it Youtube.

[quote]R124 Did she ever give a real honest-to-God low key, understated performance?

Why should she?? Anyone can do [italic]that.[/italic]

I think she was fairly restrained in “Night of the Hunter” though, IIRC.

[quote]Did she ever give a real honest-to-God low key, understated performance?

Well she wasn't Julie Adams, Phyllis Thaxter or Hope Lange, we know how thrilling their work could be. :/

Check our Odds Against Tomorrow, He Ran All The Way, Executive Suite, I Died A Thousand Times (remake of High Sierra), My Man And I.

I know an actor who had a small role in the film HEAVY. He was standing outside when Winters exited her dressing room, and she shrieked at him, “Stop staring at my tits! Stop staring at my tits!!”

He was somewhat taken aback.

Yeah but did he stop staring at her tits?

[italic]He swears he wasn’t!

Well, here's someone who really has a lot to say about "Shelley". A really tiresome old queen. I hope Shelley really pissed him off.

r134 That was posted here two days ago. Look upthread.

BTW, I love that old queen -- he was a gifted storyteller. Check YouTube for his stories about Bea Arthur and Elizabeth Taylor.

Gifted story teller---my God, it takes him forever to get a cross the simplest detail. The high point of his career was playing the lead in something called " Greater Tuna", which I guess was big somewhere in the 80s.

She made a career of being someone you hoped would die.

"When we were roommates, Marilyn Monroe and I wore the same dress size!"

She replaced Bette Davis on Broadway in The Night of the Iguana. Does anyone know what she wrote about Bette in her autobiography?

Then there was the time when she masturbated to a squirt in front of ten thousand sailors in Korea. On that occasion,she also took a Kleenex out of her purse, wiped herself off and sang the National Anthem.

R139 If there was anything it would have been in the 2nd volume because the 1st one ends before that (or does it? I forget). She was supposed to have been better than Bette in that part, which doesn't surprise me as it doesn't seem like a good fit for Bette but does for Shelley. I think Williams wanted Davis and Katharine Hepburn for the two leads but didn't get Hepburn, while Davis said yes. She was then apparently upset when she realized the other part (played by Margaret Leighton) was bigger and more interesting than the one she accepted,.

r139 Bette left Shelley a note warning about how evil her co-stars Patrick O'Neal and Margaret Leighton were. At first she dismissed it, but she found at that Bette was telling the truth.

Oh I remember that now

Her real name was Shirley Shrift. Her mother's maiden name was Winter. She originally called herself Shirley Winer, then Shelley Winter, after the poet. She was billed by error s Shelley Winters, and it stuck. She got attention when she was one of the later replacements for Ado Annie in the long-running Oklahoma, on Broadway. Played many bit parts in films for several years before getting her chance in A Double Life (1947), directed by George Cukor, starring Ronald Colman.

Well, Lindsay Anderson said that Bette Davis was a monster. Shelley Winters has been painted as one as well... Btw, Anderson praised all three old ladies' talents from "The Whales of August," but only Sothern and Gish were receptive, respectful co-workers.

Maybe she was a monster at that age, after having strokes, if she always had been, no one would have worked with her. Joe Mankiewicz always praised her totally, guess it depends.

[Quote] if she always had been, no one would have worked with her.

There was an interview with the Homeland creator that referenced Mandy Patinkin. The creator said that when certain names come up for casting, you ask yourself "Is X worth the trouble?" Many producers decided that Bette Davis (and Shelley Winters) were worth the trouble.

Gladys Cooper said Bette Davis had 'natural breeding". You don't say that about a costar who's a monster. Yeah we've all heard stories about Bette Davis, but not consistent stories that she was a monster to work with. Anyway I was alos referring to other actors. Some like Henry Fonda worked with her several times. Not under contract, but as a choice. So she couldn't have been unbearable.

*also

Shelley on the Tonight Show with Joan

ha-larious

Watch through to Norman Mailer where Shelley butts in like it's the James Corden show or something - Joan steals the scene.

Bette Davis's career wasn't exactly in high gear before she was asked to replace Claudette Colbert in "All About Eve." She recognized it as a great screenplay and a great opportunity, so she had no reason to give Joe Mankiewicz a hard time. When she was cast, Mankiewicz was warned that Davis would eat him alive, but that proved not to be true at all.

Dean Martin worked with Jerry Lewis several times...

R112, Debbie wrote in her autobiography that Hugh O'Brian once escorted her to a party in Malibu, where they both witnessed Shelley sitting at a table while two young men took turns orally servicing her underneath her peasant skirt.

Debbie, keepin in classy

Shelley made up as many stories about her career as Elaine Stritch did.

For decades, Shelley lamented that she did not win the Oscar for her first film, "A Double Life", when in fact she wasn't even nominated.

It twirled up!

Shelley could have played the Mary Wickes part.

What Mary Wickes part?

Shirley MacLaine's mother in Postcards From the Edge.

off topic, but Debbie's Meryl Streep impersonation is Emmy-worthy

^^ Debbie Does Meryl

Gossip columnist Liz Smith had this little gem:

[quote]Another one I met early on was a girl named Shelley Winters. Modern Screen assigned me to go around with her in New York while she bought Christmas presents. Every store we stepped into, Shelley would take these expensive things and head for the door. The shops were horrified, but they were afraid to ask her to pay. So I really disliked her after that.

R163, And Liz Smith's point was?

Chet Haze never paid for coffee when he worked at Fred Siegal (sp?).

Tony Curtis talked about Marilyn dying in his Private Screenings interview and asked where were all the people who claimed to be Marilyn's close friend? Where was Shelley? and Susan Strasberg?

They weren't allowed at the funeral. Di Maggio kept it down to a very tight group of non-Hollywood people.

R167, Years later, at an anniversary/reunion game at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio refused to shake the hand of then Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

That lStreep impression was great