Shelley Winters

“Every now and then, when you’re on stage, 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.”

“I grew up in a different morality from today.  When I did Lolita with James Mason, I had to be given drugs to calm me when I was doing a scene in bed with him.  In Alfie, when I was supposed to be on top of Michael Caine, I had little pillows placed all over his body so we wouldn’t touch.  He was screaming so much with laughter, we almost didn’t get the scene done.”

“I had to go and see this guy, very important man, and everyone said: ‘Watch out, Shelley.  The second you get into his office, he’ll tear your dress off.’ ‘I’ll remember,’ I said, ‘I’ll wear an old dress.’”

“Now that I’m over sixty I’m veering toward respectability.”

“I asked Dylan Thomas why he’d come to Hollywood and very solemnly he said: ‘To touch a starlet’s tits.’ ‘OK,’ I said, ‘but only one finger.’”

“In Hollywood, all marriages are happy.  It’s trying to live together afterwards that causes the problems.”

“It’s not merely talent that brings them your way in Hollywood but being noticed and talked about.  I discussed it with my press agent and quite cold-bloodedly we invented this personality - a dumb blonde with a body and a set of sharp sayings.”

“I’m not overweight.  I’m just nine inches too short.”

“My face was always so made up, it looked as though it had the decorators in.”

“I think it’s disgusting!  Shameful!  And damaging to all things American.  But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive, religious experience.”

“I have bursts of being a lady, but it doesn’t last long.”

“I was so cold the other day, I almost got married.”

“It was so cold I almost got married.”

“Whenever you want to marry someone, go have lunch with his ex-wife.”

“Where do you go to get anorexia?”

“You are your brother’s keeper - and if you don’t feel you are, then you’re not very philosophic.”