When I was a kid one of my favorite movies was The Poseidon Adventure. So much did I enjoy the flick that whenever my school took us to concerts at Cincinnati’s Music Hall, I used to imagine what would happen if the hall would flip over as did the S.S. Poseidon in that 1970s film. Where would I end up? How would an escape?
Would a nice Jewish grandmother risk her life to save me as Shelley Winters‘ Belle Rosen swam to help save the passengers who were trying to escape with her? Winters’ Rosen suffered a heart attack and died for her efforts. The boy who accompanied her survived. And Winters earned her fourth Oscar nod.
Twenty-four years after Belle Rosen died, the world has lost the great actress who put so much panache into that character’s dying words. With great sadness, I report that Ms. Winters‘ died yesterday. She was 85.
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Ed Driscoll's Hollywood archives here. More Driscolliana on the film biz here.
The flyleaf tells me I bought my copy of [Steven Bach's] Final Cut in May 1987. This was the third time I'd read it, and the story and the sleek prose seemed every bit as fresh as the first. Has anyone written a better book about the film industry?
This is a story worth reading. It is truly an "LA" story. It'll make you sick. It's lengthy, but worth the read.