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1-15 of 15
- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling, a sister, Blanche. Her father moved the family to Brooklyn when she was still young so that he, a tailor's cutter, could find steadier work closer to the city's garment industry. An unfailing interest in acting began quite early for Shelley, and she appeared in high school plays. By her mid- to late teens she had already been employed as a Woolworth's store clerk, model, borscht belt vaudevillian and nightclub chorine, all in order to pay for her acting classes. During a nationwide search in 1939 for GWTW's Scarlett O'Hara, Shelley was advised by auditioning director George Cukor to get acting lessons, which she did. Apprenticing in summer stock, she made her Broadway debut in the short-lived comedy "The Night Before Christmas" in 1941 and followed it with the operetta "Rosalinda" (1942) initially billing herself in both shows as Shelley Winter (without the "s").
Within a short time, Shelley pushed ahead for a career out west. Hollywood proved to be a tough road. Toiling in bit roles for years, many of her scenes were excised altogether during her early days. Obscurely used in such movies as What a Woman! (1943), The Racket Man (1944), Cover Girl (1944) and Tonight and Every Night (1945), her breakthrough did not occur until 1947, and it happened on both the stage and big screen. Not only did she win the replacement role of Ado Annie Carnes in "Oklahoma!" on Broadway but, around the same time, scored excellent notices on film as the party girl waitress who ends up a victim of deranged strangler (and Oscar winner) Ronald Colman in the critically hailed A Double Life (1947) directed by Cukor. From this moment, she achieved a somewhat earthy film stardom, playing second-lead broads who often met untimely ends (as in Cry of the City (1948) and The Great Gatsby (1949)), or tawdry-black-stockinged and feather-boa-adorned leads, as in South Sea Sinner (1950) in which her eclectic co-stars included Macdonald Carey and Liberace!
As a tarnished glamour girl and symbol of working-class vulgarity in Hollywood, Shelley was about to be written off in pictures altogether when one of her finest movie roles arrived on her front porch. Her best hard luck girl storyboard showed up in the form of depressed, frumpy-looking Alice Tripp, a factory girl seduced and abandoned by wanderlust Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951). Favoring gorgeous society girl Elizabeth Taylor who is totally out of his league, Clift is subsequently blackmailed by Winters' pathetic (and now pregnant) character into marrying her. For her desperate efforts, she is purposely drowned by Clift after he tips their canoe. The role, which garnered Shelley her first Oscar nomination, finally plucked her out of the sordid starlet pool she was treading and into the ranks of serious femme star contenders. But not for long.
Winters just couldn't escape the lurid bottle-blonde quality she instilled in her characters. During what should have been her peak time in films were a host of badly scripted "B" films. The obvious, two-dimensional chorines, barflies, floozies and gold diggers she played in Behave Yourself! (1951), Frenchie (1950), Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), Playgirl (1954), and also Mambo (1954), in which co-starred second husband Vittorio Gassman, pretty much said it all. She grew extremely disenchanted and decided to return to dramatic study. Earning membership into the famed Actors' Studio, she went to Broadway and earned kudos, thereby reestablishing her reputation as a strong actress with the drug-themed play "A Hatful of Rain" (1955). Co-starring in the show was the up-and-coming Anthony Franciosa, who became her third husband in 1957. Her renewed dedication to pursuing quality work was shown by her appearances in a number of heavyweight theater roles including Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1955). In later years, the Actors' Studio enthusiast became one of its most respected coaches, shaping up a number of today's fine talents with the Strasberg "method" technique.
By the late 1950s, she had started growing in girth and wisely eased into colorful character supports. The switch paid off. After a sterling performance as the ill-fated wife of sadistic killer Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955), she scored big in the Oscar department when she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the shrill and hypertensive but doomed Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). From this period sprouted a host of revoltingly bad mamas, blowsy matrons, and trashy madams in such film fare as Lolita (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), The Balcony (1963) Wives and Lovers (1963), and A House Is Not a Home (1964). She topped things off as the abusive prostitute mom in A Patch of Blue (1965) who was not above pimping her own blind daughter (the late Elizabeth Hartman) for household money. The actress managed to place a second Oscar on her mantle for this riveting support work.
With advancing age and increasing size, she found a comfortable niche in the harping Jewish wife/mother category with loud, flashy, unsubtle roles in Enter Laughing (1967), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) and, most notably, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). She earned another Oscar nomination for "Poseidon" while portraying her third drowning victim. At around the same time, she scored quite well as the indomitable Marx Brothers' mama in "Minnie's Boys" on Broadway in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she developed into an oddly distracted personality on TV, making countless talk show appearances and becoming quite the raconteur and incessant name dropper with her juicy Hollywood behind-the-scenes tales. Candid would be an understatement when she published two scintillating tell-all autobiographies that reached the bestsellers list. "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1981) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989) detailed dalliances with Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, William Holden, Sean Connery and Clark Gable, to name just a few.
Thrice divorced (her first husband was a WWII captain; her only child, Vittoria, was the daughter of her second husband, Gassman), she remained footloose and fancy free after finally breaking it off with the volatile Franciosa in 1960. Her stormy marriages and notorious affairs, not to mention her ambitious forays into politics and feminist causes, kept her name alive for decades. She worked in films until the beginning of the millennium, her last film being the easily dismissed Italian feature La bomba (1999). She enjoyed Emmy-winning TV work and had the recurring role of Roseanne Barr's tell-it-like-it-is grandmother on the comedienne's self-named sitcom. Her last years were marred by failing health and, for the most part, she was confined to a wheelchair. Suffering a heart attack in October of 2005, she died in a Beverly Hills nursing home of heart failure on January 14, 2006.
It was reported that only hours earlier on her deathbed she had entered into a "spiritual" union with her longtime companion of 19 years, Gerry McFord; a relationship of which her daughter disapproved. Gregarious, brazen, ambitious and completely unpredictable -- that would be Shelley Winters, the storyteller, whose amazing career lasted over six colorful decades.- Patricia Ann Sheehan was born in San Francisco, California on September 7, 1931, the daughter of Arthur Edmond Sheehan and Gladys Anna Larson. She grew into one of the most beautiful women in the world. She was one of the first Playmate centerfolds for Playboy (Miss October 1958). If you ever saw Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys (2000), you saw her centerfold photo in the opening scene.
Men all over the world wanted her. She dated Howard Hughes, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Rod Taylor, among others, but in the end wound up marrying Bing Crosby's son, Dennis Crosby. She had three beautiful children Gregory, Dennis Jr. and Patrick.
Pat was the "NBC Queen" and the "Colgate Comedy Hour Girl", and there wasn't a man alive who didn't lose his breath when she walked into a room. Always with class and a big smile. She crossed over to meet the "boys" on January 14, 2006. - Director
- Writer
- Editor
Henri Colpi was born on 15 July 1921 in Brig, Valais, Switzerland. He was a director and writer, known for The Long Absence (1961), Codine (1963) and Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). He died on 14 January 2006 in Menton, Alpes-Maritimes, France.- Music Department
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Erno Neufeld was born on 7 May 1909. He was an actor, known for Mancini and Friends (1987), The Jack Benny Program (1950) and The Godchild (1974). He died on 14 January 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Music Department
Mercedes Vázquez was born on 9 September 1931 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for Al son del mambo (1950), Te besaré en la boca (1950) and Nuevo amanecer (1954). She died on 14 January 2006 in Miami, Florida, USA.- Additional Crew
- Producer
- Actor
Jeff Thompson was a producer and actor, known for Ai City (1986), Terra e... (1980) and Dangaizer 3 (1999). He died on 14 January 2006 in Ohio, USA.- Heinrich Severloh was born on 23 June 1923 in Metzingen, Weimar Republic [now Germany]. He died on 14 January 2006 in Lachendorf, Germany.
- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Jo Excoffier was born in 1926 in Switzerland. He was a writer and actor, known for Charles, Dead or Alive (1969), Venise sombre et danse (1975) and How Can I Love (1983). He died on 14 January 2006.- Writer
- Animation Department
- Additional Crew
Jacques Faizant was born on 30 October 1918 in Laroquebrou, France. He was a writer, known for Oublie-moi, Mandoline (1976), Première nouvelle (1956) and Astres et désastres (1945). He died on 14 January 2006 in Paris, France.- Gustaw Kolinski was born on 15 January 1930 in Sielec, Lesniowice, Chelmskie, Lubelskie, Poland. He was an actor, known for Television Theater (1953). He died on 14 January 2006 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland.
- Additional Crew
Rita Berggreen was born on 4 September 1908. She is known for Eventyrrejsen (1960). She died on 14 January 2006.- Bob Weinstock was born on 2 October 1928 in New York City, New York, USA. He died on 14 January 2006 in Deerfield Beach, Florida, USA.
- Rolf von der Laage was born on 23 August 1932 in Herzogenrath, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was an actor, known for Die Truhe (1964) and Acht Stunden Zeit (1965). He was married to Gladys Chai. He died on 14 January 2006 in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
- Inessa Seleznyova was born on 13 August 1929. She was a director, known for Vospitanie zhestokosti u zhenshchin i sobak (1993), Papa, slozhi! (1966) and Perevod s angliyskogo (1972). She died on 14 January 2006 in Moscow, Russia.
- Additional Crew
Jim Gary was born on 17 February 1939 in Sebastian, Florida, USA. He is known for Howard the Duck (1986). He died on 14 January 2006 in Freehold, New Jersey, USA.