Actress Shelley Winters dies at 83

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Two-time Oscar-winning actress Shelley Winters died of heart failure in Beverly Hills, Calif., Saturday at the age of 83.

Winters, who won supporting actress Oscars for "The Diary of Anne Frank" in 1959 and "A Patch of Blue" in 1965, had been hospitalized in October after suffering a heart attack. She died Saturday at the Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills, her publicist, Dale Olson, told the New York Times.

Winters -- who was also nominated for Oscars for her performances in "A Place in the Sun" and "The Poseidon Adventure" -- broke into Hollywood in the early 1940s, playing bit parts in more than a dozen movies before becoming a featured player in such movies as "A Double Life" and "The Great Gatsby."

Born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Winters grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and studied acting at the New Theater School. She performed in the chorus of Broadway musicals before going to Hollywood, where she signed with Columbia Pictures in Hollywood as a contract player, and joined the Actor's Lab.

Winters wrote a best-selling 1980 memoir, "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley," and followed it up with "Shelley II."