Shirley MacLaine (born April 24, 1934) is an
American film and theater actress, dancer, activist, and author,
well-known for her beliefs in
new age
spirituality and
reincarnation.
She has
written a large number of autobiographical
work, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her
Hollywood
career. In 1983, she won the
Academy Award for Best
Actress for her role in
Terms of Endearment. She is the
elder sister of actor
Warren
Beatty.
Early life
Named
after Shirley Temple, MacLaine was
born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond
, Virginia. Her father, Ira Owens Beaty, was a
professor of psychology, public school administrator and real
estate agent, and her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a Nova Scotia
-born drama teacher; her grandparents were also
teachers. Through her mother she is descended from the
Scottish Clan
Maclean. The family was devoutly Baptist.
MacLaine's father
moved the family from Richmond to Norfolk
, and then to
Arlington,
Virginia
, while she was still a child, then to Waverley
, eventually
taking a position at Arlington's Jefferson Middle School.
The Beaty family lived in a house in the Western part of the county
off Wilson Boulevard where it was said that Shirley and brother,
Warren were known around their
neighborhood as troublemakers in their pre-adolescent days.
Shirley had very weak ankles as a child, so her mother decided to
enroll her in ballet class. It was such a nourishing and inspiring
artistic environment for her. "My imagination took anchor." And so
her childhood dream soon became to be a professional ballerina.
Strongly motivated by ballet throughout her youth, she never missed
a class. When a piece was performed, she would play the boy's role,
being the tallest participant. She was so determined and so set on
being a dancer that her recurring childhood nightmare was that she
missed the bus to class. She finally landed a solid female role in
a ballet, the Fairy Godmother in
Cinderella; but, while
warming up backstage, she snapped her ankle. Despite the injury,
she remained determined to make it through the show. She simply
tied the ankle ribbon on her
toe shoes
extra tight and went "on with the show". After it was over, she
called for an ambulance.
Eventually, MacLaine decided that professional ballet wasn't for
her. She said that she did not really have the right body type and
that she did not want to starve herself. Also, she didn't have
"beautifully constructed" feet (high arches and insteps). Nor was
she of "exquisite beauty" and felt emotionally stifled much of the
time. After leaving ballet, MacLaine 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
achieved her goal of becoming a star when 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 would later sue
Wallis over a contractual dispute, a suit that is credited with
having ended the old-style studio system of actor management.
Career
She made her debut in the
Alfred
Hitchcock's film
The
Trouble with Harry (1955), which won her the
Golden
Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress. In 1956, she
took parts in
Hot Spell and
Around
the World in Eighty Days. At the same time, she starred in
Some Came Running; this
film gave her her first Academy Award nomination - one of five that
the film received - and a Golden Globe nomination.
She got her second nomination two years later for
The Apartment, starring with
Jack Lemmon. The film won 5 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, based
on the play by
Lillian Hellman. She
was again nominated for
Irma la
Douce (1963), for which she reunited with Wilder and
Lemmon.
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 she was able to portray a retired ballerina
much like herself, along with co-star
Anne
Bancroft. In 1983 she won her first Oscar for
Terms of Endearment. The film won
five Oscars; one for
Jack Nicholson
and three for director
James L.
Brooks. In the awards season for
films of 1988, she became the first actress since the inception of
the
Golden Globe Awards to win a
Golden Globe for Best Actress —for
Madame Sousatzka—without getting an
Oscar nomination for the same performance (
Kate Winslet became the second for her
performance in
Revolutionary Road (2008)).
MacLaine won her award for
Madame Sousatzka in a three-way
tie with
Jodie Foster (
The Accused) and
Sigourney Weaver (
Gorillas in the Mist).
She continued to star in major films, like
Steel Magnolias with
Julia Roberts. She made her feature-film
directorial debut in the quirky film
Bruno, written by then new-comer
David Ciminello in his
Disney-Meets-David Lynch style. 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
Two Mules for Sister
Sara (1970) with
Clint
Eastwood,
Being There
(1979) with
Peter Sellers,
Used People with
Jessica Tandy and
Kathy
Bates,
Guarding Tess with
Nicholas Cage,
Sweet Charity (1968),
Rumor Has It with
Kevin Costner and
Jennifer Aniston and
In Her Shoes with
Cameron Diaz.
MacLaine is also set to star in
Poor
Things, a drama. The production has been delayed due to
Lindsay Lohan's period in rehab.
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 sit-com called
Shirley's World.
MacLaine
has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1165 Vine Street.
Personal life
Shirley MacLaine (1987)
MacLaine was married to businessman Steve Parker until they
divorced in 1982. They had a daughter,
Sachi Parker (born 1956).
MacLaine's interest in spirituality is very strong and long-lived.
Many of her best-selling books, such as
Out on a Limb and
Dancing in the Light
have it as their central theme. Her beliefs have compelled her to
explore herself and the world.
This includes walking El Camino de
Santiago
and working with Chris Griscom. MacLaine was also a
practitioner of Transcendental Meditation.
Her well-known interest in new-age spirituality has made its way
into several films in which MacLaine has been featured. In
Albert Brooks' 1991 romantic comedy
Defending Your Life,
the recently-deceased lead characters, played by Albert Brooks and
Meryl Streep, are astonished when, upon visiting the "Past Lives
Pavilion," they find the introduction to their past lives to be
provided by MacLaine. In the 2001 made-for-television movie,
These Old Broads, starring MacLaine along with Debbie
Reynolds, Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor and written by Debbie
Reynolds' daughter, Carrie Fisher, the character played by MacLaine
is portrayed as a devotee of new-age spirituality.
MacLaine found her way into many law school casebooks 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 cancelled.
Twentieth Century-Fox offered her a role in another film,
Big
Country, Big Man, in hope of getting out of its contractual
obligation to pay her for the cancelled film.
MacLaine's refusal led
to an appeal by Twentieth Century-Fox to the Supreme Court
of California
in 1970, where the Court ruled against Fox.
Parker
v. Twentieth Century-Fox
Film Corp., 474 P.2d 689 (Cal. 1970).
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)
References
- New England Historic Genealogical Society
- The religion of Warren Beatty, actor,
director
- Actor Warren Beatty gives public-policy graduates —
and Gov. Schwarzenegger — some advice on power
- Hanrihan v. Parker, 19 Misc. 2d 467, 469 (N.Y. Misc.
1959)
- LA Times, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Bibliography
External links
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