Shirley Knight
Nude

Shirley Knight appeared in more than 180 feature films, television movies, television series, and Broadway productions. She earned two Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations, one for her role as Reenie Flood in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) and as Heavenly Finley in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), and garnered attention in such roles as Polly in The Group (1966) with Candice Bergen, as Polo in Petulia (1968) with an all-star cast that included Julie Christie and George C. Scott, as the character Beatrice in Secrets (1971) with Jacqueline Bisset, as Barbara Bannister in Juggernaut (1974) with Omar Sharif and Anthony Hopkins, and in 1979’s Beyond the Poseidon Adventure as Hannah Meredith, alongside Michael Caine, Sally Field and Telly Savalas. She was also cast by Francis Ford Coppola as runaway housewife Natalie in The Rain People (1969), where we see a still-svelte version of the performer in silhouette with peaked nipples. The busy thespian spent her ‘80s and ‘90s in various TV movies and series, keeping things pretty chaste until her part as Peggy Buckey in the movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995). In a women’s prison scene, the star has to lose her clothes for a strip search. It was a daring scene for an older woman and a typically stellar moment from this always-impressive actress, who proves that nudity, and a bare derriere, is welcome at any age and at any size. Rounding out her career, Shirley had character-actor parts in movie hits (either box office or fan) As Good as It Gets (1997), Angel Eyes (2001), The Salton Sea (2002), Grandma’s Boy (2006), Paul Blart: Mall Cop—both the original (2009) and the sequel (2015), Our Idiot Brother (2011), and Mercy (2014). The legendary actress passed away in 2020. Sigh.