In Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, who plays Charlotte Haze, Dolores’s mother?

Shelley Winters plays Charlotte Haze, Dolores’s mother, in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita.

Released in 1962, Lolita adapts Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel about Humbert Humbert, a literature professor whose obsession with the adolescent Dolores Haze drives the story. James Mason plays Humbert, while Sue Lyon plays Dolores.

Winters portrays Charlotte as Humbert’s landlady and eventual wife. Her performance emphasizes Charlotte’s romantic hopes and her misunderstanding of Humbert’s motives. Nabokov himself wrote an early screenplay draft, although Kubrick and James Harris substantially reshaped the production script.

The film was made under strict censorship restrictions, so it is not a literal reproduction of every aspect of the novel. Viewers also sometimes confuse Shelley Winters with the film’s younger star, Sue Lyon, who plays Dolores rather than Charlotte.