Subject
Shelley Winters on working with Kubrick, Mason, and Sellers,
and filming the bedroom scene in LOLITA
and filming the bedroom scene in LOLITA
From
Date
Body
Shelley Winters (from SHELLEY II: THE MIDDLE OF MY CENTURY) on the role of Charlotte Haze, working with Kubrick, James Mason, and Peter Sellers, and filming the bedroom scene with Mason (pp. 348-350):
I think the role of Charlotte in LOLITA is one of the best performances I ever gave in any medium. She is dumb and cunning, silly, sad, sexy, and bizarre, and totally American and human. Until I saw the whole film cut together, I did not realize the gift that Kurbrick had given me. I was enchanted with Charlotte and very proud of her. Kubrick had the insight to find the areas of me that were pseudointellectual and pretentious. We all have those things in us.
I found Peter Sellers and James Mason to be the strangest actors I’ve ever worked with. James Mason was handsome and sexy and very, very intelligent, but most aloof and technical. Perhaps it was Humbert Humbert, the character he was playing. He always seemed outside of his role watching himself*and me. I felt terribly frustrated when doing a scene with him, but, then again, when I saw the rushes, he was hilarious and marvelous. His asides were so quiet that, when we were acting, I never even heard them. He was constantly repeating the ends of mys sentences, and while he seemed to be intently gazing into my eyes, his ears seemed to become another set of eyes, looking at my nubile fourteen-year-old daughter, Lolita. Well, they say about great acting, you must listen with your eyes and look with your ears. James Mason did this magnificently. I really had to work very hard to keep him from stealing every scene from me.
Peter Sellers seemed to be acting on a different planet. The audiences weren’t very outer-space-conscious in 1961, but I never could connect with him. Whenever I complained to Kubrick about trying to connect with my two leading men, he would agree with me. But he didn’t change their performances, and this very frustration that I had in real life was what was so sad and funny about Charlotte. I ever felt anyone was listening to me when I talked, except for the sound man. Again, I didn’t understand the lonely quality it gave me until I saw the film.
Although I am fairly free sexually on paper or when I am alone with a husband or lover in the bedroom*in front of a camera or on the stage I freeze. There was a very simple scene of my wedding night with James Mason. I had on a silk robe. which I still have, and Kubrick wanted me to sit on the bed, drop the robe with my back to the camera, hold the cover up, get into bed with James Mason, and snuggle up against his back. Nothing showed. If I did the scene right, only my bare back would be exposed to the camera for a second. Then Humbert sort of starts making love to me, staring at a picture of Lolita over my shoulder.
I COULD NOT DO IT. I fell out of the bed, I pushed James Mason out of the other side of the bed, I tore the robe, I hit the mike with my head, I got the lines mixed up, I broke James’s glasses. At one point he said, “I think there are a couple of other people in bed with us.” Instead of being sexual, I was clutching the robe to my bosom. Imagine any awkward thing, and I did it during that day we were trying to shoot that scene. At lunchtime, they fed me gin, they cleared the set of the unnecessary crew (by now, the entire crew of CLEOPATRA had come over to watch “the klutz”), and Mason marveled:
“I can’t believe you can’t do such a simple thing! Drop the robe in the back, cover your bosom, get under the cover, and snuggle up against me.”
I just couldn’t, and, after spending a day trying to get this scene, at 4:30 p.m. Kubrick said, “Well, I know it’s going to look silly, but keep the damn robe on and get in the bed and snuggle up against his back.”
By now, we’d done a lot of takes. So the audience wouldn’t know whether I’d taken off the robe or not, the camera panned in on a close-up of James Mason’s face, which by now he could hardly keep straight.
So that’s the way we did it, and it does look silly in the movie. If you rush out and get the cassette of LOLITA, you’ll see it’s so. Thank God for dissolves.
That scene, though, broke the ice between James Mason and myself. At one point, when I was squirming with embarrassment under the covers with just panties on, Mason whispered to me:
“Would it make you feel more comfortable if I tell you that a long time ago my name was Moskowitz, and not Mason?”
“No,” I whispered back. “The only thing that would make me feel more comfortable is if you lie absolutely still when I put my naked bosom up against your back.”
“That would be very ungallant,” James said.
I think that’s the one and only nude scene I ever attempted in films.
I think the role of Charlotte in LOLITA is one of the best performances I ever gave in any medium. She is dumb and cunning, silly, sad, sexy, and bizarre, and totally American and human. Until I saw the whole film cut together, I did not realize the gift that Kurbrick had given me. I was enchanted with Charlotte and very proud of her. Kubrick had the insight to find the areas of me that were pseudointellectual and pretentious. We all have those things in us.
I found Peter Sellers and James Mason to be the strangest actors I’ve ever worked with. James Mason was handsome and sexy and very, very intelligent, but most aloof and technical. Perhaps it was Humbert Humbert, the character he was playing. He always seemed outside of his role watching himself*and me. I felt terribly frustrated when doing a scene with him, but, then again, when I saw the rushes, he was hilarious and marvelous. His asides were so quiet that, when we were acting, I never even heard them. He was constantly repeating the ends of mys sentences, and while he seemed to be intently gazing into my eyes, his ears seemed to become another set of eyes, looking at my nubile fourteen-year-old daughter, Lolita. Well, they say about great acting, you must listen with your eyes and look with your ears. James Mason did this magnificently. I really had to work very hard to keep him from stealing every scene from me.
Peter Sellers seemed to be acting on a different planet. The audiences weren’t very outer-space-conscious in 1961, but I never could connect with him. Whenever I complained to Kubrick about trying to connect with my two leading men, he would agree with me. But he didn’t change their performances, and this very frustration that I had in real life was what was so sad and funny about Charlotte. I ever felt anyone was listening to me when I talked, except for the sound man. Again, I didn’t understand the lonely quality it gave me until I saw the film.
Although I am fairly free sexually on paper or when I am alone with a husband or lover in the bedroom*in front of a camera or on the stage I freeze. There was a very simple scene of my wedding night with James Mason. I had on a silk robe. which I still have, and Kubrick wanted me to sit on the bed, drop the robe with my back to the camera, hold the cover up, get into bed with James Mason, and snuggle up against his back. Nothing showed. If I did the scene right, only my bare back would be exposed to the camera for a second. Then Humbert sort of starts making love to me, staring at a picture of Lolita over my shoulder.
I COULD NOT DO IT. I fell out of the bed, I pushed James Mason out of the other side of the bed, I tore the robe, I hit the mike with my head, I got the lines mixed up, I broke James’s glasses. At one point he said, “I think there are a couple of other people in bed with us.” Instead of being sexual, I was clutching the robe to my bosom. Imagine any awkward thing, and I did it during that day we were trying to shoot that scene. At lunchtime, they fed me gin, they cleared the set of the unnecessary crew (by now, the entire crew of CLEOPATRA had come over to watch “the klutz”), and Mason marveled:
“I can’t believe you can’t do such a simple thing! Drop the robe in the back, cover your bosom, get under the cover, and snuggle up against me.”
I just couldn’t, and, after spending a day trying to get this scene, at 4:30 p.m. Kubrick said, “Well, I know it’s going to look silly, but keep the damn robe on and get in the bed and snuggle up against his back.”
By now, we’d done a lot of takes. So the audience wouldn’t know whether I’d taken off the robe or not, the camera panned in on a close-up of James Mason’s face, which by now he could hardly keep straight.
So that’s the way we did it, and it does look silly in the movie. If you rush out and get the cassette of LOLITA, you’ll see it’s so. Thank God for dissolves.
That scene, though, broke the ice between James Mason and myself. At one point, when I was squirming with embarrassment under the covers with just panties on, Mason whispered to me:
“Would it make you feel more comfortable if I tell you that a long time ago my name was Moskowitz, and not Mason?”
“No,” I whispered back. “The only thing that would make me feel more comfortable is if you lie absolutely still when I put my naked bosom up against your back.”
“That would be very ungallant,” James said.
I think that’s the one and only nude scene I ever attempted in films.