Actress Shelley Winters dies
Shelley Winters, the outspoken actress who won Oscars for her work in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and A Patch of Blue (1965), has died of heart failure at the age of 85.
Her publicist in California, Dale Olson, said Winters died early Saturday in a Beverly Hills hospital. She had been in hospital since suffering a heart attack in October.
A frank-talking star who went from a young blond bombshell to acclaimed dramatic actress, Winters captured supporting actress Academy Awards for The Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue . She donated her first Oscar to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam.
In the film, Winters portrayed Petronella Van Daan, one of 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 in the Second World War.
"Shelley was ... an extraordinary woman with powerful charisma, enormous talent and a keen, perceptive mind," said friend and actress Connie Stevens.
Born Shirley Schrift in East St. Louis, Ill., the actress first began her entertainment career as a nightclub chorus girl and then moved on to the theatre scene in New York. Soon after, she became a famous sex symbol in Hollywood.
She got her first Oscar nomination playing a pregnant factory girl that Montgomery Clift drowns so he could marry the woman played by Elizabeth Taylor in 1951's A Place in the Sun.
Her other famous roles came in movies such as A Double Life (1947), The Night of the Hunter (1955) and Lolita (1962). Winters was also unforgettable as Ma Barker in the 1970 cult classic Bloody Mama.
She may be best remembered as Belle Rosen, the former swimming champion who sacrifices her life to save fellow passengers, in 1972's The Poseidon Adventure. The role garnered Winters her last Oscar nomination.
Often described as tough-talking and bombastic, Winters starred with a variety of famous actors including Frank Sinatra in Meet Danny Wilson (1952), James Stewart in Winchester '73 (1950), Michael Caine in Alfie (1966) and Nicole Kidman in Portrait of a Lady (1996).
Working well into her seventies, Winters had a recurring role as Roseanne' s grandmother in the 1990s TV series Roseanne.
The actress wrote frankly about her private life in two autobiographies: Shelley, Also Known as Shirley (1980) and Shelley II: The Middle of My Century (1989).
"I've had it all," she once said after her first book became a bestseller.
She wrote openly of her romances with Burt Lancaster, William Holden, Marlon Brando, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and other leading men.
Of her dalliance with actor Burt Lancaster: "Despite the immediate and powerful chemistry between us, the love and the friendship, some wise part of me knew that he would never abandon his children while they were young and needed him."
She ended the two-year affair after Lancaster's wife became pregnant with their third child.
Winters always maintained her sense of humour and once described herself as a "senior citizen sex bomb."
Winters was married and divorced three times and had one child through her 1952-54 marriage to Italian actor Vittorio Gassman. She is survived by her daughter Vittoria Gassman Neuman and two grandchildren.