Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift inSt. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Rose (née Winter), a singer with St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre ("The Muny"), and Jonas Schrift, a designer of men's clothing.[1] Her parents wereJewish;[2][3] her father migrated fromGrzymałów,Galicia,Austria-Hungary, in what is now Ukraine, and her mother was born in St. Louis to Austrian immigrants who were also from Grzymałów.[2] Her parents were third cousins. Her Jewish education included attendance at the Jamaica Jewish Center and learningHebrew songs at her public school.[2] Her family moved toBrooklyn, New York, when she was nine years old,[4] and she grew up partly inQueens, New York, as well.[5] As a young woman, she worked as a model.[6] Her sister Blanche Schrift later married George Boroff, who ran the Circle Theatre (now namedEl Centro Theatre) inLos Angeles, California. At age 16, Winters relocated to Los Angeles,[4] and later returned to New York to study acting atThe New School.[7]
Winters made her Broadway debut inThe Night Before Christmas (1941) which had a short run. She had a small part inRosalinda, an adaptation ofDie Fledermaus (1942–44) which ran for 611 performances. Winters first received acclaim when she joined the cast ofOklahoma! asAdo Annie.[8]
Title card of the movieBehave Yourself! (1951), featuring Winters
Winters originally broke into Hollywood films as ablonde bombshell type, but quickly tired of the role's limitations. She claims to have washed off her make-up to audition for the role of Alice Tripp, the factory girl, inA Place in the Sun, directed byGeorge Stevens, now a landmark American film. As the Associated Press reported, the general public was unaware of how serious a craftswoman Winters was. "Although she was in demand as a character actress, Winters continued to study her craft. She attendedCharles Laughton'sShakespeare classes and worked at theActors Studio, both as student and teacher."[12] She studied in theHollywood Studio Club, and in the late 1940s, she shared an apartment withMarilyn Monroe.[13] Her performance inA Place in the Sun (1951), a departure from the sexpot image that her studio,Universal Pictures, was grooming her for at the time, brought Winters her first acclaim, earning her a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Actress. Winters went to United Artists forHe Ran All the Way (1951) with John Garfield and RKO forBehave Yourself! (1951) withFarley Granger. Winters was top-billed inThe Raging Tide (1951) at Universal. She was loaned to 20th Century Fox forPhone Call from a Stranger (1952), withBette Davis.
Her final performances includedTouch of a Stranger (1990),Stepping Out (1991) withLiza Minnelli,Weep No More, My Lady (1992),The Pickle (1993) for Mazursky, andThe 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 sitcomRoseanne. Her final film roles were supporting ones: She played a restaurant owner and mother of an overweight cook inHeavy (1995) withLiv Tyler andDebbie Harry forJames Mangold; an aristocrat inThe Portrait of a Lady (1996), starringNicole Kidman andJohn Malkovich; and an embittered nursing home administrator in 1999'sGideon.[28] She was in comedies such asBackfire! (1995),Jury Duty (1995), andMrs. Munck (1995) as well asRaging 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."[citation needed] That led to a second career as a writer. Though not a conventional beauty, she claimed that her acting, wit, andchutzpah gave her a sex life to rival Monroe's. Her claimed partners includedWilliam Holden,Sean Connery,Burt Lancaster,Errol Flynn, andMarlon Brando.[29]
Winters was married four times. Her husbands were:
Captain Mack Paul Mayer, whom she married on December 29, 1943, in Brooklyn.[30] Winters and Mayer were divorced in October 1948.[31] Mayer was unable to deal with Shelley's "Hollywood lifestyle" and wanted a "traditional homemaker" for a wife. Mayer wore his wedding ring up until her death and kept their relationship very private.[citation needed]
Vittorio Gassman, whom she married on April 28, 1952, in Juárez, Mexico;[32] they divorced on June 2, 1954. They had one child: Vittoria, born February 14, 1953, a physician who practices internal medicine atNorwalk Hospital inNorwalk, Connecticut. She is Winters' only child.[citation needed]
Anthony Franciosa, whom she married on May 4, 1957; they were divorced on November 18, 1960.[33]
Gerry DeFord, whom she married on January 13, 2006.[34]
Hours before her death, Winters married long-time companion Gerry DeFord, with whom she had lived for 19 years. Though Winters' daughter objected to the marriage, actressSally Kirkland performed the wedding ceremony while Winters was on her deathbed. Kirkland, a minister of theMovement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, also performed Winters's non-denominational last rites.[35][36]
Winters had a much-publicized romance withFarley Granger that became a long-term friendship (according to their respective autobiographies).[37][38] She starred with him in the 1951 filmBehave Yourself! as well as in a 1957 television production ofA. J. Cronin's novelBeyond This Place.
Winters became friendly with rock singerJanis Joplin shortly before Joplin died in 1970. She invited Joplin to sit in on a class session at the Actors' Studio at its Los Angeles location. Joplin never did.[44]
^ab"Obituary of Shelley Winters Versatile actress whose career spanned half a century and took her from good-time girls to Jewish mothers".The Daily Telegraph. January 16, 2006. p. 021.
^abThomas, Bob (January 15, 2006). "Two-time Oscar winner first won fame as sexpot" (Third ed.). ASSOCIATED PRESS. p. A.2.
^Hopper, Hedda (July 26, 1949). "Walker Will Costar with Singer Grayson".Los Angeles Times.ProQuest165977394.
^Scheuer, P. K. (November 13, 1949). "SHELLEY WINTERS MAY DO JEAN HARLOW'S LIFE".Los Angeles Times.ProQuest166060791.
^Schallert, Edwin (August 11, 1952). "SHELLEY WINTERS' ROLE CREATES STIR".Los Angeles Times. p. B6.
^THOMAS M. PRYOR (August 8, 1953). "FILMING SPEEDED AT MAJOR STUDIOS: 44 Features Will Se Made in Hollywood This Month, a Big Rise Over Spring". p. 14.
^Richards, Dick (September 25, 1954). "SHELLEY: THE NOT-SO-DUMB BLONDE".Answers. Vol. 126, no. 3256. London. p. 2.
^abClifford, Terry (April 2, 1985). "Shelley Winters: Still running her own three-ring circus Tempo Shelley Winters runs own three-ring circus".Chicago Tribune. p. d1.
^MAURICE ZOLOTOW (February 12, 1956). "Shelley Winters?".The Washington Post and Times-Herald. p. AW6.
^"Anne Frank".Anne Frank Website. September 28, 2018.
^"Shelley Winters Guest on Chico".Los Angeles Times. December 6, 1974. p. h32.
^"Busy Summer for Shelley Winters".Los Angeles Times. August 28, 1979. p. f6.
^Christy, Marian (June 29, 1980). "STYLE MARIAN CHRISTY; ; THIS WINTERS IS A STORMY ONE; PUSHING 60, SHELLEY IS ASCINTILLATING MATRON WHOSE ADRENALIN IS FANTASY".The Boston Globe (FIRST ed.). p. 1.
^Kart, Larry (July 19, 1981). "THEATER: Shelley: Also known as the durable star".Chicago Tribune. p. c5.
^Christy, Marian (September 3, 1989). "SHELLEY WINTERS BATTLES HER EMOTIONS".The Boston Globe (THIRD ed.). p. 91.
^Winters, Shelley (1980).Shelley, Also Known as Shirley. New York: William Morrow and Company. p. 273. "Farley Granger and I became inseparable friends, sometimes lovers, certainly as close as brother and sister, and always there when we needed each other. We now live in the same building in New York, two floors apart. He prefers the theater now, and he does movies and TV only when he has to. He is just as handsome as he was then, except that his beautiful black, curly hair is now pepper and salt and he is more disciplined about food and exercise than I am. It's strange how our friendship has lasted through husbands and wives and fiancés and lovers and children growing up and long and short separations. Once we were talking about something, then for some reason didn't see each other for about five years, and the next time we met we just continued the same conversation. There is almost nothing I can't tell him, and I think he feels the same way about me."ISBN0-688-03638-4.
Parkin, Molly (November 17, 1996). "She Ain't Heavy, She's... the woman who bedded Brando, shared a flat with Monroe, and upstaged Gielgud. She is Shelley Winters, Molly Parkin's new soul sister".The Sunday Telegraph Magazine. pp.25,26
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