Shelley II: The Middle of My Century

by Shelley Winters

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

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Memoir, Autobiography

494 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1989

About the author

Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006.

Winters won Academy Awards for her acting in The Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue, and is also remembered for her role in The Poseidon Adventure .

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

More wacky movie star fun in this sequel to Winter's 1980 autobiography, Shelley, Also Known As Shirley. This time around Shelley gets involved with more hot late '50s/early 60's Hollywood men, including Sean Connery, has a tumultuous 3-year marriage to Anthony Franciosa, works passionately for civil rights and other progressive causes (atta girl, Shelley!), and reluctantly continues to make dumb B movies for Universal for the money while also managing to use her considerable Method acting skills to land roles in a handful of classic movies with great auteur directors like Charles Laughton (Night of the Hunter), Stanley Kubrick (Lolita), and George Stevens (The Diary of Anne Frank, for which she won the first of her two Oscars). She had a pretty amazing life but as in her first book she always comes across as a really fun, earthy, albeit eccentric sort of gal—the kind of movie star you'd want to hang out with for sure (and she'd probably pick up the tab in the restaurant). If you like Hollywood autobios this one is highly readable and dishy. 3.5 outta 5.

[Char (1RadReader59) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drop dead funny, I have never laughed so hard. When we are getting dressed to go out my husband & I will still laugh when I put on heels. Because Shelly had a special name for them. (Sorry inside joke you have to read her books). Let's just say shoe shopping has never been more fun for us both. Love her style of writing & humor. Her love life was wow a little to hot to touch. But different strokes but if true or creative licensing it made for an interesting read.

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining and illuminating frolic of the art of acting from the 1950s to the death of JFK with many details of the many people of Shelley’s acquaintance.

[Debra Pawlak · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading and thoroughly enjoying Shelley Winters's first book, I finally got around to reading this one, which is her second. This one is not as good as the first, but there are some great nuggets--like the time Shelley asked her roommate, Marilyn Monroe, to 'wash the lettuce' for a dinner party while she went grocery shopping. One hour later, Shelley returned home to find Marilyn at the kitchen sink scrubbing the individual lettuce leaves with a Brillo pad. To be fair, however, Marilyn was never known for her culinary skills! In this book, she also wrote extensively about her failed marriage to Anthony Franciosa. Like I have come to expect, Winters is frank and open, but I couldn't help but wonder what his side of the story would be. If you liked Winters's first book, you might like this one, too, but don't say I didn't warn you!

[Pamela]

Almost always enjoy a celebrity autobiography.

[Helen Robare · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a lot of actress autobiographies some good, some okay, and some bad.

This one was good.

Shelley Winters has been a favorite of mine since I saw her in The Poseidon Adventure when it first came out back in the 70s. I knew she had written at least 2 books about her life but I could not find them for a price I could afford. This summer I went to a garage sale and her 2nd autobiography was for sale for a price I could not pass up. :)

Shelley led a very interesting movie star life. She doesn't hold much back about her life either. She talks about her marriages, her sex life, her family, and her films. It was all enjoyable.

The one thing that kept me from giving this book 5 stars was that she jumped around (back and forth) from subject to subject and past to "present" so much that it was very confusing. In one paragraph she will be talking about one husband and then mid-stream she's talking about a different one. It got pretty confusing. I understand that she talked like that so it was understandable that she would also write like that but...! Still it was a good book. I liked it.

[Caryatid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't help it. Not at all attracted to reading about a movie star I only picked this up as backup for my biography shelf.
But it was a fun read about people I'd watched, read about and world events. Shelly runs off at the mouth very well in an artless, endearing way. I looked for a subsequent volume but sadly there isn't one so this ends with the authors distress at the death of her adored JFK, one of her many lapses in judgment.

[Lynne Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again Miss Winters life was very interesting.
She lead her life fearlessly.
She knew may upcoming stars at the beginning of their careers.
She shared some interesting stories about them.
I loved she wrote about her affairs and how she loved many that she didn't marry.
I loved how she prevailed and go the upper hand in many situations

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not as gossipy as the first one, but delves more into her divorces, her daughter, and her work with the Democratic party. Beautiful ending. I am sorrowful that she never did part III.

PS: Sean Connery? Who knew?

[Diane Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I read it slowly and devoured it all! What an interesting life she had. A great read whether you enjoy autobiographies or not. I recommend it!

[E.H. Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously, if you’re picking up Shelley II, you’ve already read Shelley Winters’s first memoir. This picks up right where its predecessor left off and spends the majority of its pages remembering the 1960s. While it’s still entertaining, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. The first book showed an immature young woman trying to make it as a movie star; she made impulsive decisions she later regretted. As she grew older but not wiser, it felt self-indulgent to keep the same level of immaturity well into middle-age.

Her reckless relationship with the younger budding actor Anthony Franciosa led to a marriage that was a mistake from the start. With his horrible temper, unpredictable mood swings, and intense mental problems, she should have broken it off sooner – which she admits. If she wasn’t she old enough to know better about Tony, wasn’t she certainly old enough to know better about Vittorio Gassman?

Shelley Winters was passionate about the Civil Rights Movement, and many chapters are devoted to her dalliance with political and social issues. She freely admits that her second Academy award (for the loud-mouthed racist in A Patch of Blue) was probably won because her screen persona was so different from her off camera. She also shares lots of backstage drama as she returned to the legitimate theatre in A Hatful of Rain and The Night of the Iguana (wonderful roles for her). This second volume is still chock-full of interesting stories and intense drama, and I still really enjoyed reading it. I just wish, for her sake, she had grown up a little through the years. She might have had a happier life.

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[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although not quite as enthralling as her first book, "Shelley: Also Known As Shirley" which she published in the mid-1970s, this sequel, published in 1989, picks up where the first book left off, in the mid-1950s as her second marriage, to Italian actor Vittorio Gassmann, was ending. In the next decade she would win two Academy Awards, appear in numerous plays in New York and on tours, marry and divorce actor Tony Franciosa, and have great difficulty deciding whether to base herself primarily in New York or in L.A. This book was published just a couple of years before she became a semi-regular on the TV show "Roseanne" (playing Roseanne's free-spirited grandmother), so she was still a bit wary of getting a TV career during most of the years about which she was writing. She also conducted acting classes and those were interesting to read about, describing various techniques she used as a "Method" actress, but I think her anecdotes about her movies and plays and the co-stars in them were the most fun. Start with her first book if you haven't read that one, then give this one a try. A must-read for movie buffs.

**#113 of 120 books pledged to read/review in 2016**

[elissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book if you like to read about the stage and screen. Winters is a wonderful storyteller, and if even a fraction of this is true she had a remarkable life. I read her first book, Shelley, Also Known as Shirley, and enjoyed that also. Aside from the dish on her colleagues and the movies and plays she was in, I'm most impressed that she never stopped studying acting, even once she had already become a "Movie Star", she still took class at the Actor's Studio.

One of the funniest scenes in this book is Shelly's description of Khrushchev's visit to the Fox studio. I laughed out loud.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed both of Shelley Winters' autobiographies. She was a very interesting and talented actress.

[Riccardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drop dead funny.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winters is a great ranconteur, and this entire book is highly entertaining. Her writing style is terrific.

[Suzan Poisner · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was difficult to finish, but I managed...just. This was even drier than the prequel, with even more name dropping, if that was possible.

[Sara Root · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy reading Shelley Winter's 2nd auto biography. I had read it so many times over and over again. I find something new in it every time.