#method actor

Winters initially had to work hard to convince Hollywood she was a serious actress. Oscar-nominated Sally Kirkland, who knew and worked with Winters from 1962-2006, recalled the lengths she went to convince director George Stevens that she was more than a sex symbol in order to play the dowdy pregnant Alice Tripp, who is murdered by her boyfriend (Montgomery Clift) in A PLACE IN THE SUN (’51).

“When George Stevens made an appointment to meet her at the Hollywood Athletic Club, she made her hair brown. She’s flattened her chest, got a dowdy coat. She sits there for an hour because he doesn’t recognize her. Winters went to these ‘extremes’ because she’s smart enough to know she can not be a blonde bombshell. He agrees to test her and then hires her. She gets her Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Of course, that relationship with Monty Clift was profound to her.”

She also excelled in the gothic thriller THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (’55), the only film directed by Oscar-winning actor Charles Laughton. “I don’t know whether this is a well-known fact, but she felt Charles Laughton really taught her acting,” said Kirkland.” In fact, before she made NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Winters had taken a Shakespeare acting class with the British actor. “He took her under his wing,” noted Kirkland. “During my entire time with her from 1962 until she died, she would talk about Charles Laughton. From her point of view, he was her mentor.”

Winters also respected Lee Strasberg, with whom she studied at the Actors Studio in New York and later became a well-respected teacher there. “She loved Lee Strasberg,” said Kirkland. “I loved Lee Strasberg. I studied with him from ’64 on.” (Winters got Kirkland into the Actors Studios.) But Kirkland noted that Strasberg was “a very hard man to have a relationship with. He was very closed off in the sense of communications other than when he was critiquing. I think Charles Laughton had a really personal relationship with her. She had him on such a pedestal. She said he taught her more than anybody.”

After THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Winters left Hollywood for the Actors Studio and soon was appearing on Broadway in A Hatful of Rain with Ben Gazzara and Anthony Franciosa, who would become her third husband. Winters played the pregnant wife of a Korean vet struggling with heroin addiction.

“I was a teenager and saw it on Broadway,” said Kirkland. “It just blew my mind. I said, ‘I have to do that. I have to do what Shelley’s doing.’ Unbelievable impact on me.” Winters also impacted Baker. “While we were on DIARY, if something happened, she didn’t stop the scene,” Baker explained. “One time, something happened to the chair when she was in a scene. The chair went down the stairs. She didn’t say cut or stop acting. She went down the stairs to bring the chair back up and kept going.” Baker recalled that Winters wasn’t “Hollywood” in any way. She had a table at the Silver Spoon on Santa Monica Blvd. Just a normal simple little lunch table where she sat and had people visiting. She used to have her little group of people who were friends who would chat and talk.”

Stevens treated Winters with sensitivity and understanding, Baker noted. “He went along with her creative needs. I think that’s why he brought her onto DIARY, because she was the combination of nerves, humor and at the same time tragedy. She would pull it off.’

“I think she was just a mensch,” added Baker. She was more than a mensch to Kirkland. “I studied with her. I was her assistant. I taught her all her lines in LOLITA (‘62), A PATCH OF BLUE (’65), THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (‘72). I basically did everything she needed help with. She always wanted a young actress, kind of a protégé; I always wanted a stage mom. My mom was fashion editor for Life at the time and didn’t have time to be a typical mom.“

When Kirkland was working with Winters as the actress preparing for A PATCH OF BLUE, for which Winters won her second Oscar for playing the harridan bigoted mother of a young blind woman, she gave Kirkland a gold friendship ring. “It said, ‘To Sally from Shelley. I love you.’”

Winters had to gain nearly 40 pounds for her final Oscar-nominated role in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE for her sweet performance as a former competitive swimmer. She never was able to lose the weight. Though the quality of her films was a mixed bag until her death, Winters still gave some great performances especially in Pau Mazursky’s NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGE (‘76), in which she plays the ultimate Jewish mother.