Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters circa 1951

Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress.

Quotes

• Every now and then, when you're onstage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live.
  • Theatre Arts magazine, June 1956

• I've been away from Hollywood so long, I feel like a spider on a wedding cake.
  • On the set of Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960), as quoted in "Rambling Reporter" by Mike Connolly, Hollywood Reporter (December 10, 1958), p. 2

• I think the purpose of the actor is to illuminate the human condition. When you go to a film and you see a good actor, it's because you identify with them—you know what they're feeling—and a good actor draws, I believe, from their own experience. And when it's true for him, it's true for you. If a director imposes a performance or you try to mimic somebody, it can be funny or brilliant, but it isn't moving.
  • On acting, interview with Skip E. Lowe (1989)

Attributed

• A pretty face is a passport.
  • Quoted by Julie Burchill, Sex & sensibility (1992), p. 55