Shirley Stoler (March 30, 1929 - February 17, 1999) was an American actress best known for her roles in The Honeymoon Killers and Lina Wertmuller's Seven Beauties.
Throughout her career, Shirley Stoler was large and often played villainesses (such as in The Honeymoon Killers and on TV in an episode of Charlie's Angels) whose scariness often derived from Stoler's physical strength and size. A character actress as well as an occasional lead, Stoler appeared in small roles in classic films including Klute, The Deer Hunter, and Desperately Seeking Susan.
The highlight of her film career arguably was her turn as the repulsive Nazi female prison commandant in Lina Wertmüller's masterpiece Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975) (Seven Beauties), in which she plays a cat and mouse game of seduction with the concentration camp inmate played by Giancarlo Giannini. Giannini's inmate was very much the mouse, and Stoler's commandant was very much the cat if not the lioness, holding her prisoner/lover's life in her hands/paws. Though a profile of Stoler was featured on the front page of the New York Times Arts section, her performance -- one of the most harrowing and fascinating portraits of evil ever filmed -- was ignored during the awards season, likely as her dialogue had to be dubbed into Italian. The film -- the success of which depended a great deal on her -- was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film of 1976, and garnered Wertmüller nominations as Best Director (a first for a woman) and Best Original Screenplay, and Stoller's co-star Giannini a nod as Best Actor.
Stoler also appeared on Broadway and in daytime soap operas, as well as Saturday morning television, playing the role of Mrs. Steve on Pee-wee's Playhouse. She lived in New York's Chelsea district until her death from apparently natural causes at the age of 69.
Her impassive, imposing face was stark and chilling and her immense frame intimidating and equally foreboding. Born in 1929 Brooklynese actress Shirley Stoler started off as a member of the New York's La Mama and Living Theatre companies. She had reached Broadway by the time she earned cult film infamy in 1970. First, but not necessarily foremost, was her portrayal of real-life homicidal maniac Martha Beck in the lowbudget cult flick Honeymoon Killers, The (1970) ). Paired up with Tony Lo Bianco's brazen Raymond Fernandez, the two created a formidable pair of "Lonelyhearts" serial murderers that still is talked about today. As if nothing could out-creep this role, she did so most convincingly as the terrifyingly repulsive, whip-carrying commandant in Lina Wertmüller's WWII masterpiece Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975) [Seven Beauties]. Her reviling seduction byplay with Giancarlo Giannini, playing a concentration camp inmate whose life is left in her hands, remains one of the most harrowing and fascinating scenes ever filmed. For the duration of her career, however, Shirley was rather obliquely cast either as minor ethnic hausfrau or seedy streetwise characters. Featured in lowbudget drek unworthy of her talents, her minor gallery of grotesques included the prison guard in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Spike the Bartender in Frankenhooker (1990), and the pawnshop store owner in Miami Blues (1990) in which she chops con man Alec Baldwin's fingers off with a machete. Occasionally she was given a more humane part, such as her grief-stricken Vietnam-war mom in the high quality Oscar winner Deer Hunter, The (1978), but, again, it was too insignificant a role to make any substantial impact. On TV Shirley made frequent guest appearances and was a short-lived regular on both daytime and nighttime drama, both comedic ("Pee-wee's Playhouse") and dramatic ("Skag"). She died of heart failure in 1999.
