Shelley Winters never saw herself as beautiful, and the gap between how the world viewed her and how she viewed herself shaped her entire life. She was the blonde bombshell that studios built films around, yet she once sat in a classroom quietly reshaping her own teeth with her thumb because she could not afford an orthodontist. That combination of ambition, insecurity, and sheer will followed her through a career that lasted roughly sixty years, two Academy Awards, and a personal life so eventful it inspired a film. She was born Shirley Shrift on August 18, 1920, in St.
Louis, Missouri. When she was nine, her father moved the family to Brooklyn and opened a men’s tailor shop. Business was good, and the family began to settle into their new life, but the calm did not last. A small fire broke out when rats chewed into a box of matches in the shop.
The fire was minor and quickly handled, but according to Winters, the firefighters who responded rewarded themselves by looting her father’s stock, taking about five thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise. The family had hope because her father carried five thousand dollars in insurance, but that hope collapsed when he was charged with arson. The state accused him of setting the fire himself to collect the insurance. His family argued the point, asking why he would set such a small fire if that was his plan, but the court found him guilty and sentenced him to ten to twenty years in Sing Sing.
Life grew harder for the family. Shelley escaped to the cinema, but even that refuge could not protect her from the next blow. Her father was stabbed in prison, and the wound was nearly fatal. He survived, and her mother fought to overturn the conviction.
She forced a retrial, and this time the court set him free. Around that time, Shelley began her own battle, one fought entirely within herself. She felt her face was unattractive. She thought her mole made her look ugly, her blond eyebrows were too thick, and her dirty blonde hair was too kinky.
She considered her upper canine teeth too long. She managed to save money to curl her hair and pluck her eyebrows, but there was nothing left for her teeth. An orthodontist said he could not help without payment, so Shelley took matters into her own hands. For the rest of the school year, she sat in class and pushed her left eye tooth into a small space she made larger with her fingers.
When she was done, she finally felt beautiful. Her parents did not notice the change until she started winning local beauty pageants and came home with a trophy her father assumed she had stolen. She worked as a store clerk, a waitress, and a chorus girl to finance her ambitions. While still raw as an actress, she managed to get into the office of famed director George Cukor to audition for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.
He did not give her the part, but he gave her advice: go take acting lessons. She did. Early in her career, she paired up with another young blonde, Norma Jean Mortenson, the woman the world would come to know as Marilyn Monroe. The two were fun, open-minded, and lighthearted.
They shared stories, talked about men, and drew up a list of men they wanted to sleep with. Marilyn’s list contained a surprising entry: Albert Einstein. Shelley taught Marilyn how to be more glamorous, advising her to tilt her head back, droop her eyelids, and position her mouth to become more seductive. They helped each other in other ways too, and their friendship lasted through the years.
Shelley’s big break came when she moved to Universal, where she was cast as the studio’s blonde bombshell. She starred in A Double Life and became a star, but the studio wanted to keep her in dumb blonde roles. She wanted more. She enrolled at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, becoming one of its earliest students of method acting.
The approach transformed her career. When she auditioned for A Place in the Sun, she did not show up as Shelley Winters. She dyed her hair brown, wore shabby clothes, and presented herself as a factory worker. The director gave her the part on the spot.
Method acting earned her a place among the greats. Lee Strasberg called her the star of her generation and one of the few students who could diligently use the technique. The method came at a cost. She gained twenty-five pounds for her role in The Diary of Anne Frank and had to lose the weight during filming.
Later, for The Poseidon Adventure, she gained weight again but found she could not lose it, especially with her love of food. MGM eventually restricted her to eating only from the diet section. Her personal life was as eventful as her career. She married four times.
Her first marriage was to Captain Mack Paul Mayer in 1942, just before he shipped off to fight in the war. She reportedly remained loyal while he was gone, but when he returned, the two had drawn apart. He did not care for Hollywood, and she chose her career. She kept the wedding ring he gave her.
Before that marriage, there was a relationship with a struggling actor that ended when he proposed. She broke it off with scathing comments and ended the pregnancy that had come with the relationship. Her love life included a string of famous men. She had a relationship with Burt Lancaster, even though he was married, and she did not mind that fact.
The fun ended when she discovered he was still sleeping with his wife. When news broke that his wife was expecting another child, Shelley screamed and shouted at him, asking why he still slept with his wife. Sad and alone, she called her former classmate Marlon Brando to console her. He did, by getting into bed with her.
Their affair continued on and off for years, and Brando was there when she went into premature labor while her husband was away, dashing through the city to get her to the hospital. She had a repeating December affair with William Holden during her time at Universal. Their meetings were always sensual, and the affair was so epic it inspired a film. She also had a fling with Errol Flynn, who invited her to check out the bed near his bar.
She left that visit with a first edition of The Great Gatsby, among other things. She was linked to Farley Granger as well. When Sam Goldwyn needed Farley to be seen with a woman for publicity purposes, he offered a list of quiet, proper candidates. Farley found them all no fun.
Then he met Shelley Winters, and the two became fast friends and lovers. Her second marriage was to Vittorio Gassman, an Italian actor she met while promoting a film in Italy. She was involved with another man at the time and Gassman was married, but the romance moved quickly. She worked against the rigid laws of Catholicism to help him get a divorce.
The couple had a daughter together, Victoria, and then Shelley learned that Gassman was a great cheat. Her third marriage was to actor Tony Franciosa, a fellow Actors Studio member she had worked with on Broadway. She was eight years older than him, and they had explosive chemistry but fought constantly. When Shelley came home with her second Oscar, Franciosa grew jealous, and she caught him having an affair with Judy Balaban, the daughter of Paramount’s president.
She gave up on marriage after that. She had relationships, including one with Jerry DeFord, a man thirty years her junior. Her daughter disapproved, worried about his influence. Near the end of her life, Shelley suffered a heart attack and was bedridden in the hospital.
From her hospital bed, she married Jerry anyway. Ten hours later, she died. Her final act left her daughter and her new husband fighting over who had the right to manage her estate. Shelley Winters lived a full life, one filled with pain, fun, heartbreak, success, and regret.
She was brutally honest, feisty, and beautiful, all of those things and more. But the same drive that pushed her to fix her own teeth with her thumb and break through the constraints of Hollywood would not let her stop, not even on her final day.