Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role 1960
Shelley Winters The Diary of Anne Frank 1960
SEX WORKER ROLE
Madame Irma in The Balcony 1963
Polly Adler in House Is Not A Home 1964
Connie in Cages 1963 & 1985
First Two Characters Are Madams. Last Character Is A Prostitute
Shelley Winters in The Balcony 1963, House Is Not A Home 1964 & Cages 1963 & 1985
It’s fitting that Simone Signoret and Shelley collectively won their first Academy Award in the same year. They are among the female Oscar winners who have played the most prostitutes. Sophia Loren has played the most hooker roles, with seven. Simone Signoret is in second place with six. Shelley ties with Anne Baxter for third place. Both of those ladies have played a prostitute five times.
One of her prostitute roles includes “The Balcony,” where Shelley plays Madame Irma. Her character runs a bordello that allows men to act out their S&M fantasies.
Watch clip of the film “The Balcony” with fellow Oscar Winner Lee Grant
The following year Shelley played yet another brothel madam. “In House Is Not A Home,” Shelley plays the real-life Polly Adler, who ran the most successful brothel in New York City’s history.
Watch trailer of the film “House Is Not A Home”
For the part of the prostitute in the play “Cages,” Shelley played this part not once but twice. With over 20 years in between! She first played the role off-Broadway in 1963. Twenty-two years later, she reprised the character on the Chicago stage in 1985. In the “Snow Angels” segment, John hires a hooker, not for sex, but to play a role. He wants the hooker to dress up and act like a girl he once met in a museum. Then act out certain scenes that only exist in his mind.
Shelley Winters and Jack Warden in Cages 1963.
Shelley Winters also won a second Oscar for playing a hooker in the film “A Patch of Blue.”
Go to Shelley Winters A Patch of Blue 1966 to read about her Oscar winning prostitute role.
To read more about this prostitute role & other Oscar-winning actresses playing a hooker, please continue perusing
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