Answer: Winters was an adaptable survivor, which is why a movie actress now easily spotted in bit parts from the 1940s was still working half a century later. (Related items: Winters brought depth to needy characters | Watch a video obituary about Winters)
Winters was a key contributor to many big-cast ensemble films — she's especially touching as a corporate VP's mistress in 1954's Executive Suite— and her enduring legacy generally involves her showiest roles. For a Winters festival, start with the following, all on DVD:
•A Place in the Sun (1951, Paramount). Just a year after her first important lead as a Western dance-hall fixture in the classic Winchester '73, Winters landed her first great role and Oscar nomination. She's the pregnant factory girl and drowning victim abandoned by Montgomery Clift for wealthy Elizabeth Taylor.
•The Diary of Anne Frank (1959, Fox). Directed by George Stevens, Winters won the first of two supporting Oscars as the tightly wired Mrs. Van Daan, one of many Jews hiding from the Nazis in the Amsterdam attic.
•Lolita (1962, MGM/Sony). Winters' casting as the nymphet's blowsy mother was almost too dead-on, yet her performance perfectly played off lead James Mason's most pungent asides in Stanley Kubrick's film of Vladimir Nabokov's classic.