Today we’re wishing a happy birthday to a true Hollywood trailblazer: actress Shelley Winters!
Winters, a two-time Academy Award winner, was born Shirley Schrift on August 18, 1920, in an apartment on Newstead Avenue in St. Louis. Her father was a men’s clothing designer and her mother was a singer with The Muny. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York, when Winters was three years old. She left high school to become a model and studied acting at night.
She achieved stardom with the 1947 film A Double Life and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank in 1959 and for A Patch of Blue in 1965. However, it was Winters’s desire to fight Hollywood stereotypes of women and support other feminist causes that made her a true star.
Winters’s acting career spanned five decades and included both film, television and theater. She also penned two autobiographies later in life.
In 1992, Winters received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame at 6323 Delmar. She died in 2006 at the age of 85.
The Moonrise Hotel pays homage to Winters with its special celebrity suite in her name. Contact us to book your next stay in this star-studded room!