Shirley_maclaine

Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival being interviewed by Access Hollywood, photo by Tony Shek
Born	Shirley MacLean Beaty April 24 1934 (1934-04-24) (age 74) Richmond, Virginia, United States
Spouse(s)	Steve Parker (1954-1982)
Awards won Academy Awards Best Actress 1983 Terms of Endearment BAFTA Awards Best Actress in a Leading Role 1960 Ask Any Girl 1961 The Apartment Emmy Awards Outstanding Special - Comedy-Variety or Music 1976 Gypsy in My Soul Golden Globe Awards Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 1961 The Apartment 1964 Irma la Douce Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama 1984 Terms of Endearment 1989 Madame Sousatzka Cecil B. DeMille Award 1998 Lifetime Achievement Other Awards Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actress 1959 Ask Any Girl 1971 Desperate Characters Honorary Golden Berlin Bear 1999 Lifetime Achievement NBR Award for Best Actress 1983 Terms of Endearment NYFCC Award for Best Actress 1983 Terms of Endearment Volpi Cup for Best Actress 1960 The Apartment 1988 Madame Sousatzka

Shirley MacLaine (born April 24, 1934) is an Academy Award-winning American film and theatre actress, well-known not only for her acting, but for her devotion to her belief in reincarnation and extraterrestrials. She is also the writer of a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her new age beliefs, such as solipsism, as well as her Hollywood career. She is the older sister of Warren Beatty.

Biography

Early life

Named after Shirley Temple, MacLaine was born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond, Virginia\'s Bellevue neighborhood. Her father, Ira Owens Beaty,http://www.newenglandancestors.org/education/articles/research/special_guests/gary_boyd_roberts/gbr83.asp 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. The family was devoutly Baptist.http://www.adherents.com/people/pb/Warren_Beatty.htmlhttp://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/05/21_beatty.shtml MacLaine\'s father moved the family from Richmond to Norfolk, Virginia and then to Arlington, Virginia while she was still a child, then to Waverly, Virginia between 1932-1936, eventually taking a position at Arlington\'s Jefferson Middle School. The Beatty 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.

Her early childhood dream was to be a ballerina. She took ballet fervently all throughout her youth and never missed one class, and whenever they performed a piece, she would play the boy\'s role, due to being the tallest one there. 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 got to play a respectable woman\'s role, the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella," and while warming up backstage, she snapped her ankle. Many would bow out in this particular situation, but she was so determined that she simply tied the ankle ribbon on her toe shoes extra tight and go "on with the show." After it was over, she called for an ambulance.

Eventually, MacLaine decided that professional ballet was not for her. She said that she did not really have the right body type and that she did not want to starve herself. Also, her feet were not good enough (she did not have really high arches and insteps). Nor was she an "exquisite beauty." At that point, she decided to switch her focus to acting. She attended Washington-Lee High School and was on the cheerleading squad and acted in school productions. The summer before her senior year, she went to New York to try acting on Broadway with some success. After she graduated, she went back 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, director-producer Hal B. Wallis was in the audience, took note of MacLaine, and signed her to go to Hollywood 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.Hanrihan v. Parker, 19 Misc. 2d 467, 469 (N.Y. Misc. 1959)

Career

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

Her first film was the Alfred Hitchcock film The Trouble with Harry in 1955, which won her the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress. In 1958, she took part 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 the film\'s five Oscar nods - and a Golden Globe nomination. Also, she starred in a more less unknown film called "The Children\'s Hour" also starring Audrey Hepburn. Based on the play by Lillian Hellmen, the movie is captivating, moving and eye opening. She got her second nomination two years later for The Apartment, in which she starred alongside Jack Lemmon. This film won 5 Oscars, including Best Director for Billy Wilder. She was nominated for Irma la Douce (1963), once again reunited with Wilder and Lemmon. In 1975, she also 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, as was her co-star Anne Bancroft. In 1983, she finally won her first Oscar for Terms of Endearment. The film won 5 Oscars, including one for Jack Nicholson and three for director James L. Brooks. After she won an Oscar, she starred in other 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 also starred as Helen in the film that was released to video under the title Dress Code. She completed Closing the Ring, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Christopher Plummer; it will be released in 2007.

MacLaine is also set to star in Poor Things, a drama. The production has been delayed due to Lindsay Lohan\'s stint in rehab.

As of 2004, she is the only actress to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) without getting an Oscar nomination for the same performance, for Madame Sousatzka (1988).

MacLaine has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1615 Vine Street.

Personal life

MacLaine was married to businessman Steve Parker until they divorced in 1982. They had a daughter, Sachi Parker (born 1956). In the mid-1980s she was rumoured to have a love affair with Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, who was later assassinated. No individual has ever been properly convicted. According to Lars Borgnas\'s En Iskall vind drog igenom Sverige (2006), the police never investigated the possibility that any husband of his many lovers had him killed.

In political circles, MacLaine is known for her former relationship with Andrew Peacock, a former Australian Liberal Party Prime Ministerial aspirant who was later appointed as Ambassador to the United States, as well as the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. She also has a close friendship with Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich, a candidate in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Kucinich is reported to have spent a few months living in MacLaine\'s home.

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 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 them. Parker v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 474 P.2d 689 (Cal. 1970).

She shares a birthday with Barbra Streisand which they celebrate together every year. She now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Filmography

TV work

• Shirley\'s World (1971 – 1972) and a 1977 one hour special.
• Out on a Limb (1987)

Bibliography

• "Don\'t Fall Off the Mountain" (1970)
• McGovern: The Man and His Beliefs (1972)
• You Can Get There from Here (1975)
• Out on a Limb (1983)
• Dancing in the Light (1986)
• It\'s All in the Playing (1988)
• Going Within: A Guide for Inner Transformation (1989)
• Dance While You Can (1991)
• My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir (1995)
• The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit (2000)
• Out on a Leash: Exploring the Nature of Reality and Love (2003)
• Sage-ing While Age-ing (2007)

Awards

References

External links

• Shirley\'s Official Website
• Shirley MacLaine at the Internet Movie Database
• Shirley MacLaine at Yahoo! Movies
• Shirley MacLaine interviewed by Ginny Dougary (2005)

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