Poor Shelley Winters, who died yesterday at the age of 86 years and 4 months, was always feisty and frank. I sat right next to her at a 1983 Cannon Films press luncheon for Over the Brooklyn Bridge (held prior to shooting), and as producer Menahem Golan got up and began making a speech, Winters squinted her eyes and said to pretty much everyone at our table, “Don’t like him… nope, don’t like him.” I met her again in 1997 at the Silver Spoon, a breakfast place in West Hollywood, and she told me I reminded her of an old boyfriend from New York. The IMDB bio has this passage about a visit she paid to Johnny Carson’s Tonight show in July 1972: “[Winters] grew
tired of [fellow guest] Oliver Reed’s attitude towards women…and after Shelley told Reed what she thought of his opinions, she left the set. The show continued with Reed still going on about women to Carson. Shortly after Winters appeared from stage left, carrying a champagne bucket of ice and water. She surprised Reed by dumping it over his head. Reed was furious over this and tried to attack her but [production assistants] intervened. The show broke for a commercial break, and when it resumed both actors were gone.”