Shelley II: The Middle of My Century

Product Description

Spanning her career during the 1950s and 1960s, the actress describes her marriages to Vittorio Gassman and Tony Franciosa, her Oscar-winning role, the maturation of her political consciousness and famous friends and lovers

From Publishers Weekly

Resuming her autobiography, following Shelley, Also Known as Shirley , the 60-year-old actress recalls her life after divorce from Vittorio Gassman. Readers will learn about her as a Broadway star fighting her “blond bombshell” image in films during the 1950s and ’60s, and about her near-religious devotion to the Actors Studio and to liberal politics. The memoir is largely a gossip-lover’s feast. Winters reports on Tony Franciosa, her second husband and his lovers (Ava Gardner, Lauren Bacall, among others), and tells of her own affairs with Sean Connery, Albert Finney et al. Her merrier stories include reminiscences of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. No celebrity, seemingly, is missing from the autobiography of this Oscar winner (for her role in The Diary of Anne Frank ). Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Good Housekeeping; BOMC selection.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Continuing the story of her life begun in Shelley: Also Known as Shirley ( LJ 5/15/80), Winters takes us from the early 1950s through John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. During this period she made two successful appearances on Broadway and won an Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank . In a prefatory note Winters says she has been somewhat less specific about her amatory exploits in this book, but she still relates affairs with Sterling Hayden, Sean Connery, and Albert Finney, among others, and adds some steamy episodes from her marriage with Tony Franciosa. Much of the fascination of the book stems from observing Winters’s naive egocentricity, and wondering what scatterbrained thing she’s going to do next. As usual, Winters is not too concerned with accuracy, but the readers who made her previous volume a best seller won’t be disappointed by this entertaining follow-up.

– John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.