An actress of unconventional beauty with even more unconventional interests, she has been in show business for nearly 50 years, a movie star for more than four decades. For much of her early screen career, Shirley MacLaine was typed as a prostitute with a heart of gold; she has played variations of the part in 14 films, many of which count among her most well-known movies. Originally a dancer, she has appeared in few musicals, but her long leggy look has been as much of an asset as her pixieish manner. Born Shirley MacLean Beatty to a middle-class family in Virginia, she is the older half-sister of actor-director-producer WARREN BEATTY. But her show-business training began even before Warren was born.
She was given dancing lessons at the age of two and a half to firm up her weak ankles. Dancing appealed to her and, aided by her amateur-drama-coach mother, she pursued a show-business career, venturing to New York at the age of 16. It paid off, at least temporarily, in a chorus job in a revival of Oklahoma. She went home to finish high school before finally returning to New York two years later with the new stage name Shirley MacLaine.
If the way in which she rose to fame had been made into a movie, its screenwriter would have been accused of plagiarizing the 1933 movie classic 42nd Street. Shirley MacLaine had been in the chorus of Me and Juliet for 358 performances before getting another job in the chorus of a new musical, The Pajama Game. She had also been hired to understudy the star, Carol Haney. Haney broke her ankle and, with only four days' rehearsal, Shirley MacLaine had to go on. When she dropped her hat during the famous "Steam Heat" number, she reportedly swore loud enough for everyone in the theater to hear. But by the end of the show, the audience loved her, and Shirley MacLaine was an overnight sensation. HAL WALLIS, the famed movie producer, caught her performance and immediately signed her to a five-year movie contract.
Her film debut in ALFRED HITCHCOCK's macabre comedy, The Trouble with Harry (1955), was auspicious. Though the film was a commercial failure, Shirley MacLaine received good reviews. Except for a sexy and amusing performance in the Martin and Lewis comedy Artists and Models (1955), the young actress didn't attract much attention again until she delivered a riveting performance as the poor, love-starved Ginny in Some Came Running (1958). Her portrayal brought her the first of her five Oscar nominations.
The early 1960s were her best, most productive screen years. She started the decade singing and dancing in Can-Can (1960) and gave what many consider to be her best performance in The Apartment (1960), for which she won her second Oscar nomination. Not long after, she stepped into the title role in Irma La Douce (1962), substituting for ELIZABETH TAYLOR, and had another big hit, plus her third Oscar nomination. But then came a long string of flops. Even her return to musicals in Sweet Charity (1969) was a bust. She didn't star in another hit film until Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), which was essentially a CLINT EASTWOOD vehicle.
Though she wasn't big box office in the early 1970s, Shirley MacLaine's reputation was enhanced by her performance in Desperate Characters (1971). She had the chance to recoup her star status when she played a mature mother tortured by what might have been had she continued her dancing career in The Turning Point (1977). The film was a hit and it garnered Shirley MacLaine yet another Oscar nomination. The actress gave a charming supporting performance in Being There (1979), but she was truly triumphant in Terms of Endearment (1983). Her portrayal of Aurora Greenwood, the proud and difficult mother who must help her dying daughter, brought her her fifth ACADEMY AWARD nomination and, finally, her first Best Actress Oscar.
She has also written autobiographical books sprinkled with New Age insights and philosophies. Her television miniseries Out on a Limb (1988), which was based on one of her books, brought her a Golden Globe nomination for best performance in a miniseries or film made for television. Her next feature-film appearance was as the eccentric piano teacher in Madame Sousatzka (1989), for which she won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival and shared with JODIE FOSTER the Golden Globe Award as Best Actress in a Drama. The following year, she won plaudits and a British Academy nomination for her role in Steel Magnolias as the bitter divorcée and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role as MERYL STREEP's mother in Postcards from the Edge, the adaptation of Carrie Fisher's autobiographical novel. Following her role as the Jewish widow courted by Marcello Mastroianni in Used People (1992), she won a Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy in 1993.
She then reprised her Terms of Endearment role as Aurora Greenway in Evening Star (1996) and won the Lone Star Film and Television Award as Best Actress, and she was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for her role as the matriarch in Mrs. Winterbourne (also 1996). In 1999, her comedic talents brought her an Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. She has also made some television films, most notably The Salem Witch Trials (2002), in which she played Rebecca Nurse, and Joan of Arc (1999), and in 2000 she directed Bruno.
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