Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine in 1987
Born	Shirley MacLean Beaty (1934-04-24) April 24, 1934 (age 78) Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer, dancer, author, activist
Years active	1953–present
Spouse	Steve Parker (m. 1954-1982, divorced)
Children	Sachi Parker
Relatives	Warren Beatty (brother)

Shirley MacLean Beaty (born April 24, 1934), known professionally as Shirley MacLaine, is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well known for her beliefs in New Age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career. She was nominated for an Academy Award five times before winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1983 for her role in Terms of Endearment. Her younger brother is Warren Beatty.

Early life

Named after Shirley Temple, MacLaine was born in Richmond, Virginia. Her father, Ira Owens Beaty,^[1] was a professor of psychology, public school administrator, and real estate agent, and her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a drama teacher originally from Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada; MacLaine's grandparents were also teachers.The family was devoutly Baptist.^[2][3][4] Her uncle (her mother's brother-in-law) was A.A. MacLeod, a Communist member of the Ontario legislature in the 1940s.

While she was still a child, MacLaine's father moved the family from Richmond to Norfolk, and then to Arlington, Virginia and Waverly, eventually taking a position at Arlington's Thomas Jefferson Junior High School.

Shirley had very weak ankles as a child, so her mother decided to enroll her in ballet class.^[5] Strongly motivated by ballet, she never missed a class. In classical romantic pieces like "Romeo & Juliet" and "Sleeping Beauty," she always played the boys' roles, being the tallest in the class, due to the absence of males in the class. She got to play a substantial female role as the fairy godmother in "Cinderella." While warming up backstage, she broke her ankle, but proceeded to dance the role all the way through. MacLaine ultimately decided that professional ballet wasn't for her because she had grown too tall (being over 6 feet tall en pointe), wasn't good enough to make it a career and did not have the requisite "beautifully constructed feet" (high arches, high insteps).^[6] She also found ballet too limiting. After leaving ballet, MacLaine pursued dancing on Broadway. Eventually, she turned to acting.

She attended Washington-Lee High School, where she was on the cheerleading squad and acted in the school's productions. The summer before her senior year, she was in New York to try acting on Broadway with some success. After she graduated, she returned and within a year she became an understudy to actress Carol Haney in The Pajama Game; Haney broke her ankle, and MacLaine replaced her. A few months after, with Haney still out of commission, film producer Hal B. Wallis was in the audience, took note of MacLaine, and signed her to work for Paramount Pictures. She later sued Wallis over a contractual dispute, a suit that is credited with ending the old-style studio star system of actor management.^[7]

Career

MacLaine in her debut film The Trouble with Harry (1955)

MacLaine made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry (1955), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress. In 1956, she had roles in Hot Spell and Around the World in 80 Days. At the same time she starred in Some Came Running, the film that gave her first Academy Award nomination - one of five that the film received - and a Golden Globe nomination.

Her second nomination came two years later for The Apartment, starring with Jack Lemmon. The film won five Oscars, including Best Director for Billy Wilder. She later said, "I thought I would win for The Apartment, but then Elizabeth Taylor had a tracheotomy". She starred in The Children's Hour (1961) also starring Audrey Hepburn and James Garner, based on the play by Lillian Hellman and directed by William Wyler (Ben-Hur (1959 film)). She was again nominated, this time for Irma la Douce (1963), for which she reunited with Wilder and Lemmon. Don Siegel, her director on Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), in which she starred opposite Clint Eastwood, once said, "It's hard to feel any great warmth to her. She's too unfeminine and has too much balls. She's very, very hard."^[8]

With Audrey Hepburn in The Children's Hour trailer

In 1975, she received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature for her documentary film The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir. Two years later, she was once again nominated for The Turning Point co-starring Anne Bancroft, in which she portrayed a retired ballerina much like herself. In 1978, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.^[9] In 1980, she starred in A Change of Seasons alongside Anthony Hopkins. The pair famously didn't get along and Hopkins said “she was the most obnoxious actress I have ever worked with."^[10] In 1983, she won an Oscar for Terms of Endearment. The film won another four Oscars; one for Jack Nicholson and three for director James L. Brooks. In 1988, MacLaine won a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) for Madame Sousatzka.

She continued to star in major films, such as Steel Magnolias with Julia Roberts and many other stars. She made her feature-film directorial debut in Bruno, MacLaine starred as Helen in this film, which was released to video as The Dress Code. In 2007, she completed Closing the Ring, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Christopher Plummer. Other notable films in which MacLaine has starred include Sweet Charity (1968), Being There (1979) with Peter Sellers, Postcards from the Edge (1990) with actress Meryl Streep, playing a fictionalized version of Debbie Reynolds with a screenplay by Reynolds's daughter, Carrie Fisher, Used People with Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates, Guarding Tess (1994) with Nicolas Cage, Mrs. Winterbourne (1996), with actress and talk show host, Ricki Lake and actor Brendan Fraser, Rumor Has It… (2005) with Kevin Costner and Jennifer Aniston and In Her Shoes with Cameron Diaz.

MacLaine has also appeared in numerous television projects including an autobiographical miniseries based upon the book Out on a Limb, The Salem Witch Trials, These Old Broads written by Carrie Fisher and co-starring Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, and Joan Collins, and Coco, a Lifetime production based on the life of Coco Chanel. She also had a short-lived sitcom called Shirley's World. She will be appearing in the third series of the British drama Downton Abbey as Martha Levinson, mother to Cora, Countess of Grantham.^[11]

MacLaine has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1165 Vine Street and in 1999 was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival.^[12]

Personal life

Shirley MacLaine at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.

MacLaine was married to businessman Steve Parker until they divorced in 1982. In April 2011 while promoting her new book, “I'm Over All That”, she told Oprah Winfrey that she had an open relationship with her husband.^[13] They had a daughter, Sachi Parker (born 1956). Shirley shares a birthday (April 24) with her good friend, Barbra Streisand, and they traditionally spend it together each year.

MacLaine has a strong and enduring interest in spirituality and metaphysics. Many of her best-selling books, such as Out on a Limb and Dancing in the Light, have it as their central theme. Her interests have led her to such forms of spiritual exploration as walking El Camino de Santiago, working with Chris Griscom,^{[citation needed]} and practicing Transcendental Meditation.^[14]

Her well-known interest in New Age spirituality has made its way into several of her films. In Albert Brooks's 1991 romantic comedy Defending Your Life, the recently deceased lead characters, played by Brooks and Meryl Streep, are astonished to find MacLaine introducing their past lives in the "Past Lives Pavilion." In 1990's Postcards from the Edge (w/a screenplay by Carrie Fisher), MacLaine, playing a character loosely based on Debbie Reynolds, sings a special version of "I'm Still Here", with customized lyrics created especially for her by composer Stephen Sondheim. One of the lyrics was changed to "I'm feeling transcendental--am I here?" In the 2001 made-for-television movie These Old Broads - written by Reynolds's daughter - starring MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds, Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor and Carrie Fisher, MacLaine's character is a devotee of New Age spirituality.

MacLaine has such a serious interest in UFOs that she has given numerous interviews on CNN, NBC and Fox news channels on the subject through 2007-2008. In her 2007 released book "Sage-ing While Age-ing" she mentioned her alien encounters and witnessing of Washington DC UFO incidents in 1950s.^[15]

MacLaine found her way into the law books when she sued Twentieth Century-Fox for breach of contract. She was to play a role in a film titled Bloomer Girl, but the production was canceled. Twentieth Century-Fox offered her a role in another film, Big Country, Big Man, to avoid its contractual obligation to pay her for the canceled film. MacLaine's refusal led to a suit appealed by Twentieth Century-Fox to the Supreme Court of California in 1970, where the Court ruled against Fox, calling the studio's alternate role offer "different or inferior" employment. Parker v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 474 P.2d 689 (Cal. 1970).

MacLaine is godmother to the daughter of U.S. Representative, Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat and former mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.^[16]

With her younger brother, Warren Beatty, MacLaine used her celebrity status in instrumental roles as a fundraiser and organizer for George McGovern's campaign for president in 1972.^[17][18][19] That year, she authored the book McGovern: The Man and His Beliefs.^[17]

Filmography

TV work

• Shirley's World (1971–1972) and a 1977 one hour special.
• Where Do We Go From Here? (1978) Winner of the Rose D'Or
• Out on a Limb (1987)
• Downton Abbey (2012)

References

Bibliography

• MacLaine, Shirley (1970). Don't Fall Off the Mountain. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Limited. ISBN 978-0-393-07338-6. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1972). McGovern: The Man and His Beliefs. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Limited. ISBN 978-0-393-05341-8. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1975). You Can Get There from Here. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Limited. ISBN 978-0-393-07489-5. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1983). Out on a Limb. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-553-05035-6. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1986). Dancing in the Light. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-76196-2. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1987). It's All in the Playing. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-05217-6. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1989). Going Within: A Guide to Inner Transformation. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/978-055-367-8|978-055-367-8]]. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1991). Dance While You Can. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-07607-3. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (1995). My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-09717-7. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (2000). The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-7434-0072-5.  (Published in Europe as: MacLaine, Shirley (2001). The Camino: A Pilgrimage of Courage. London: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-0921-3. )
• MacLaine, Shirley (2003). Out on a Leash: Exploring the Nature of Reality and Love. New York: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-7434-8506-7. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (2007). Sage-ing While Age-ing. New York: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4165-5041-9. 
• MacLaine, Shirley (2011). I'm Over All That: And Other Confessions. New York: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4516-0729-1. 

External links

• MacLaine's Official Website
• Shirley MacLaine at the Internet Movie Database
• Shirley MacLaine at the Internet Broadway Database
• Shirley MacLaine at Yahoo! Movies
• Shirley MacLaine interviewed by Ginny Dougary (2005)
• Shirley Maclaine at Emmys.com