Shirley McLaine

Shirley MacLean Beaty (real name of the star) was born on April 24, 1934, in Richmon Virginia, three years before her brother Henry Warren – who put another ‘t’ in his stage name, as he is known as Warren Beatty –. Coming from a middle-class family, the little girl was named in honor of Shirley Temple, the child prodigy of the moment, for whom her mother, the Canadian of Scottish and Irish origin Kathlyn MacLean, an acting teacher and occasional actress, felt a great devotion. She was not going to follow in her mother’s footsteps at first Shirley, who as a child wanted to be a dancer. She joined a ballet class, in which she was always assigned the role of a boy, because she was the tallest among her classmates. She was also given the role of a fairy, in a ballet performance, but while she was warming up she had the misfortune to break her ankle. She decided to act like it was nothing, tied her ankle with her shoelaces and performed her choreography to the end. When she finished, the pain was such that they had to run for an ambulance. Finally, she realized that she was not going to make a career as a dancer.

As soon as she finished high school, she went to New York, determined to revolutionize show business. When she auditioned for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ‘Me and Juliet’, she found that the producer couldn’t pronounce her last name, Beaty, and the producer asked if she didn’t have another name, so she resorted to the last name. mother, who from then on would always accompany her. She got the odd job as a model, and was eventually cast in a Broadway stage production, “Pajama Party,” as a stand-in for Carol Haney ., the main actress. Things were not looking good, because apparently Haney was famous because she had never missed a performance, but it turned out that in the end she injured her ankle –as Shirley did in her childhood–, for which she had to give up the job. I move on to the substitute, who caused a sensation, in a case very similar to the one that Eva Naked , filmed shortly before, where Eva Harrington, a young actress, received the final accolade when she had the opportunity to replace Margo, a veteran interpreter. Among the spectators who saw him on her tables was the producer Hal B. Wallis, who decided to hire her to star in the film But… who killed Harry?, where she was the wife of the corpse to which the title alludes. MacLaine made a career very quickly, as her debut was very well received, and she was soon cast in the comedy Artists and Models , with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin . She was followed by Around the World in 80 Days (1956) , Fury in the Valley , The Matchmaker and Vincente Minnelli ‘s Like a Torrent , for which she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

In 1954 she married Steve Parker, a prestigious producer, who produced two productions starring her, My Sweet Geisha , by Jack Cardiff and John Goldfard, Please Come Home , by J. Lee Thompson . She had a daughter with him, Sachi Parker, but she ended up divorcing her many years later, in 1982, when the actress found out that he had had a Japanese lover for years. Starting in 1960, Shirley MacLaine became involved in political issues, while in cinema she began her best stage with The Apartment , one of Billy Wilder ‘s masterpieces., in which she was an elevator operator who had a relationship with a little boss, married, in the protagonist’s apartment, a poor man who lends her the keys to ensure a promotion. “There are victims and exploited. He is the fate of each and there is no remedy, ”commented MacLaine’s character, summarizing the message of the tape. She was so successful that it made a star of the actress, and Wilder himself re-paired her with Lemmon in Sweet Irma . “They were my ideal protagonists for any film,” the filmmaker said about them. In this vaudeville initially conceived as a musical, she played a prostitute with a heart of gold who charmed the gendarme played by Lemmon. For the apartment , and also for sweet Irma, MacLaine earned two new Oscar nominations. She would become a candidate six times, until the last time she finally took the prized statuette. She went for The Power of Endearment , from 1983. “I deserve this,” she said in a burst of sincerity as she went out to pick her up.

She gave one of her best performances in William Wyler ‘s The Slander , based on the play by Lillian Hellman , where she was a teacher accused by a resentful student of having a lesbian relationship with another teacher. And it is that the quality level of Shirley MacLaine’s filmography is quite high, since it is made up of titles such as My Sweet Geisha , She and Her Husbands , The Yellow Rolls-Royce , Seven Times a Woman , The Sins of Mrs. Blossom , Two Mules and a Woman or Welcome, Mr. Chance . She became a member of the Rat Pack, the gang of cronies fromFrank Sinatra , after starring with them in The Gang of Eleven . “I miss that time. It was very funny. And it could never be repeated. They were performers on and off stage. Since they were children they had lived on the tables. The last tour I did with Frank was incredible, he was older, he forgot about the lyrics, but it didn’t matter, he was a total artist, ”recalls the actress.

Interested in esoteric issues, MacLaine is convinced of the reincarnation of souls, and has written a book on the subject. “I have had ten lives, at least. I have been an Inca priestess, a dancer in a harem, and more. That is why I am good at acting, because it consists of thinking that you are another person and in reality, I am many people, ”she declares. She also wrote a book about the Camino de Santiago, which she walked in 1994. She got a lot out of roles as a mature woman in titles like Steel Magnolias , Postcards from the Edge or Tess and her bodyguard From her. She has continued to be active playing grandmothers in titles such as En sus zapatos De ella, Dicen por ahí , Closing the circleor Bewitched (2005) , where his role was reduced to a minimum in the editing room. He has declared that he never intends to retire. “I will never get tired of acting. Maybe the public gets fed up with me, but I have a lot of fun acting. And if any actor says this isn’t funny, they should be kicked out immediately,” he commented.