A place in the sun
RANDOR GUY
|
She played a range of roles, won two Oscars and wrote two autobiographies, of which one was a best seller. Shelley Winters certainly `had it all.'
|
FROM SEX SYMBOL TO THE SERIOUS: Shelley Winters won the Oscar for `A Patch of Blue'
From a sizzling sex symbol to the serious persona, Shelley Winters played a range of roles. She won two Oscars. One was for "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959). She was Petronella, one of the eight real-life Jewish refugees who hid for more than a year in cramped quarters until they were betrayed and sent to Nazi death camps during the Second World War.
The other was for "A Patch of Blue" (1965). It was a daring tale for its day with racist undertones. All about a blind, white girl falling in love with an African-American. The film also had Sidney Poitier in it.
She died recently of heart failure at Beverly Hills. She was in her 80's. She played major roles in many memorable movies. "Red River" (1948), a Howard Hawk's classic western and it had John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in the lead roles. "A Double Life" (1949), was made by George Cukor and was about life in theatre.
" A Place in the Sun" (1951), was a Hollywood classic of early 1950s based on the monumental novel `An American Tragedy' by the noted writer Theodore Dreiser. Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor played the lead roles with Winters as the poor working class girl, seduced and abandoned by the social climber hero.
"The Night of the Hunter" (1955), is a taut tale of a psychopath preacher. It had Robert Mitchum and the silent film star Lillian Gish. This dark, brooding movie was directed by Charles Laughton.
"Lolita,"(1962), was the film version of Nabokov's classic novel, directed by Stanley Kubric. It also starred James Mason.
"The Chapman Report" (1963), was a George Cukor movie based on the best-selling Irwing Wallace novel exploring the female sexual mores in American suburbia. It was a take-off on the sensational Alfred Kinsey Reports.
"Alfie" (1966), was a British movie about a Cockney who believes in loving and leaving women until life teaches him a lesson. Michael Caine became a major star with this movie.
"The Poseidon Adventure" (1972), was a fine `disaster' movie, which won Winters an Oscar nomination. Here she was the obese Belle who sacrifices her life to save fellow passengers.
`The Diary of Anne Frank.'
Born Shirley Schrift, Winters was Jewish and lived in East St. Louis, Illinois. She studied in the Hollywood Studio Club, sharing the same bedroom with another beginner, Marilyn Monroe.
She is said to have had an affair with Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., father of the late John F. Kennedy, apart from those with a string of Hollywood's leading men including William Holden, Burt Lancaster, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and Marlon Brando. She never made a secret of her love affairs!
She wrote frankly about her private life in her two autobiographies, `Shelley, Also Known as Shirley' (1980); and `Shelley II: The Middle of My Century' (1989). "I've had it all," she said after her first book became a bestseller.
She began her life in movies as a voluptuous sex bomb. Her first movie was "What a Woman" in 1943. T
hough she started her career as a glamour girl in B-grade films, she fought her way up using her looks and brains. She was also involved in theatre in New York City and was a student of the `Method Acting' school.
Her talent and sense of humour certainly earned her 'a place in the Sun... '
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
