Shelley Winters won two Oscars and was nominated twice more. She appeared in Pete's Dragon, Lolita, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Night of the Hunter, opposite inaugural Celebrity Jukeboxer, Robert Mitchum. But for me, she'll always be most famous as Belle in The Poseidon Adventure, saving Gene Hackman's life then dying of a heart attack. Tragedy. Shelley did her own stunts in that movie, though she never lost the weight she put on for the role. Double tragedy.
The Poseidon Adventure gets name-checked in both My Name Is Prince by TAFKAP, as he would soon decide to call himself... and Release Yo' Delf by Method Man. But it gets a full retelling from Killdozer...
On the television, a ship was sinking
It seemed so real, but it was just a movie
Made by Irwin Allen, boy, what a relief
And on the ship was Ernest Borgnine
Brave in the face of certain death
He played a cop on a pleasure cruise
Along with his wife, an ex-prostitute
Of course, Shelley Winters
She was on the ship
She was good, too, but she died
As did Gene Hackman, a preacher
Who gave his life so that others could live
He died shouting "How many more lives?"
(My bad. I missed that one from my Ernest Borgnine entry.)
Turns out Shelley also went to a watery grave in Night of the Hunter, as explained here by John Cale, Bob Neuwirth and guest vocalist Jenni Muldaur...
I wanna be buried in the bottom of the ocean,
Like Shelley Winters in "The Night of the Hunter".
My hair a'billowing, being kissed by the fishes, sushi
For Shabu. If fishes were wishes I'd have you. I'd have you...
And we've already covered this tune in the Mitchum entry...
Shelley Winters has a vision of
Righteousness from up above
She trades her children for the love
Of a preacher with a soul decay
But today's winner... and OK, some might dispute this... comes from Merle Haggard. Seriously, I'm not buying this as an accident or a coincidence. Merle knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote this tune. Clearly he was a fan...
For me she will always me the love interest that gave Michael Caine the elbow in Alfie. He deserved it.
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