[EDNOTE. See below for excerpts from Winters's autobiography that I posted to the List in March 2006, which are available in the archives. -- SES.
Dear List Members,
Not a direct response to Jansy's note below - but I just got volume ii of
Shelley Winter's autobiography. I was so disappointed that the first one didn't
mention Lolita and was relieved that in this one she goes into some detail about
the film . Very little about Sue Lyon, alas, but James Mason and Kubrick,
especially the latter, are discussed in great depth and she is very
complimentary to both. I was surprised to learn that Kubrick arranged for Miss
Winters to meet Nabokov. She visited with both Vladimir and Vera and passed
muster. I had forgotten that the film was made in England - for reasons of
American prudery and jurisprudence. Besides this, SW's many close friends in and
out of show business, her close relationships with her mother and children and
her many marriages make for fascinating reading.
Those interested in Democratic politics of the time will also be thrilled at her
involvement with MLK, Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson (I was surprised to
find that apparently his first name rhymes with way not why) and JFK and Mrs
Nehru in India and her descriptions of all that. I especially enjoyed reading of
her friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and the 'messy' Messer Suite (messy only
while LT was whisked back to the states for pneumonia and a trachaeotomy and the
expensive chauffer and his wife took over, neglecting her three children who had
to be rescued by Winters' mother who hadn't the foggiest who those three
homeless kids were) she and her entourage inhabited at the 'Dorch' in London.
Apparently the formerly British Liz couldn't stand British food and Howard
Hughes used to ship in chili from Chasens, lobsters from Maine, and 'chop suey
from China for all I knew' according to Shelley Winters. Great reading.
Carolyn
p.s. And her rendition of her difficulties in shooting a 'nude' scene (yes it's
in Lolita) for the one and only time in her life are a hoot and a half.
________________________________
From: Jansy <
jansy@AETERN.US>
To:
NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDUSent: Thu, April 18, 2013 6:12:14 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Lolita ... my sin, my soul (translation)
Alfred Appel Jr, noted that "Lolita is the last book one would offer as
"autobiographical," but even in its totally created form it connects with the
deepest reaches of Nabokov's soul. Like the poet Fyodor in The Gift, Nabokov
could say that while he keeps everything "on the very brink of parody. . . there
must be on the other hand an abyss of seriousness, and I must make my way along
this narrow ridge between my own truth and a caricature of it." Lolita and "the
deepest reaches of Nabokov's soul"?