After a Fashion

Shelley Winters

GOODBYE, SHELLEY Not many could utter the line "Manny, if I get stuck, push!" with the conviction that Shelley Winters did, and the character of Belle Rosen in The Poseidon Adventure is one of many that rendered Shelley immortal. Skittering across the Forties in studio-issue starlet roles, she met the brilliant George Stevens in 1951, who turned Shelley into an actress and turned her career around by casting her opposite Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (Elizabeth Taylor plays her first adult role in the film as well). Though Shelley is superb in her Oscar-nominated role as the mousy and dreary but very pregnant Alice Tripp ("I'm in trouble, George … bad trouble"), she plays the role so well that by the time the boat turns over and she drowns, the audience is deeply relieved. She followed that with a series of blockbuster performances (in movies such as The Diary of Anne Frank, for which she won her first Oscar, and The Night of the Hunter), but she excelled at comedy as well – The Poseidon Adventure for instance. An entirely new generation became acquainted with Shelley as Nana Mary on Roseanne ("Oh, have a beer, Roseanne. It's not like the fetus has to drive."), and her last screen appearance was in 1999. She is well remembered for donating her Oscar to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, as well as for dumping a champagne bucket of ice and water over Oliver Reed's head on The Tonight Show because of his sexist remarks. I love the story (perhaps apocryphal) in which she is asked to audition for a role in the Eighties. Miffed at having to audition, she arrives at the studio, pulls her two Oscars out of a bag and sets them on the table in front of the director, and says, "Some people already think I know how to act." She gets the role, of course. Though IMDb.com lists Miss Winters' date of death as January 14, (I, too, had the date of death one time, but that's a different story), they also still list contact info for her. So does the psychic over on South Lamar. RIP to a really classy broad.

WHAT'S MY LINE? I receive mysterious e-mails all the time, like the ones that want to hook me up with Viagra and a 15-year-old Asian farm slut. These are clearly from people who have no idea who I am. Then there's mysterious e-mails from people who do know who I am, but I don't have the pleasure of knowing them. So when I received an e-mail from a certain Allison Pickett, who had gotten my contact information from Andy Langer (mmmhmm), asking me to appear as the debut Mystery Guest at an all-girl monthly dinner (you know Andy desperately wants to be invited), my curiosity was piqued. It involves a group of eight friends who made a resolution to meet for dinner monthly and to invite a Mystery Guest that none of them know. Hmmm … free dinner and drinks with a passel of young women? I agreed to be Mystery Guest No. 1. I began to get nervous that morning. Were these going to be gilded "ladies who lunch"? Were they dreary housewives? Were they part of a coven? I'd asked if it was going to be dressy, and the reply was no … but it would be my luck to arrive in over-alls and a do-rag to find them in chic cocktail dresses. So I decided on my gigantic new Gucci sunglasses ($300 glasses for $30 at Ross? Dress for less? Hell, yeah!), chartreuse silk and lots of jewelry. I arrived late to the South Congress Cafe, and met the aforementioned Allison, as well as Marissa Quintans, Brooke Butner, Sheila Parr, Rebecca Rangel, Jaye Joseph, Kendra Welton, and Eileen Sandles. I had such a great time; all the girls (okay, women) were smart and funny and well-groomed, mostly in creative fields. It was witty repartee, good food, and good company (an ideal combination in my book). I thought it was a very cool little social study, and I applaud them for being so creative. And dinner was great, too.

TEA FOR TWO THOUSAND The annual dinner for the Austin Chapter of the Human Rights Commission is Saturday, March 18, 7pm at the Four Seasons. Speakers include Joe Salmonese, president of HRC, and the entertainment headliner is legendary singer Jennifer Holliday, and Karen Kuykendall will help host, as well as entertain in some fashion (Karen always entertains, even when she's not performing). Premium tickets are $225 apiece, $2,250 for a table of 10. General tickets, until February 11, are $150/$1,500. After Feb. 11, general admission is $175/$1,750. Find out more about this worthy organization at www.hrcaustin.org.