Shirley MacLean Beaty
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Film credits
14
Books
17
Awards
Shirley MacLaine won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Terms of Endearment in 1983, after receiving four previous nominations. She also starred in classics like The Apartment 1960 and Steel Magnolias 1989. Beyond acting, she is a writer and producer, and the older sister of Warren Beatty.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Shirley MacLaine — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Shirley MacLaine by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Shirley MacLaine — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Growing up as the tallest girl in her ballet class, Shirley MacLaine often played male roles at the Washington School of Ballet. She entered the world as Shirley MacLean Beaty on April 24, 1934, in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of drama teacher Kathlyn Corinne MacLean and psychology professor Ira Owens Beaty. After graduating from Washington-Lee High School, she moved to New York to pursue acting, and a producer’s mispronunciation gave her the stage name MacLaine.
Shirley MacLaine’s film career started when she filled in for an injured Carol Haney in the Broadway musical The Pajama Game. Producer Hal B. Wallis noticed her, and she signed a five-year contract with Paramount Pictures. That led to her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry in 1955. She earned her first Academy Award nomination for Some Came Running in 1958, with subsequent nominations for The Apartment 1960 and Irma la Douce 1963. In 1983, she won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment. Other roles include Steel Magnolias 1989, Postcards from the Edge 1990, and In Her Shoes 2005. She also directed Bruno 2000 and starred in the miniseries Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay 2002.
Shirley MacLaine married businessman Steve Parker on September 17, 1954. They had an open relationship and divorced in 1982. Their daughter, Sachi Parker, was born in 1956. MacLaine focused on her career while Parker lived in Japan with their daughter. In her memoir I’m Over That And Other Confessions, she claimed relationships with Danny Kaye and Robert Mitchum. Her younger brother is actor Warren Beatty, with whom she has never shared a feature film. She is close friends with Julie Christie and Barbra Streisand and celebrates her birthday with Streisand.
Shirley MacLaine received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2013 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012. She is the only actress to win an Oscar for a Best Picture-winning film while also being nominated for another such film: The Apartment and Terms of Endearment. Her performance as Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment ranked #81 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters. She mentored Julia Roberts and influenced other actors. MacLaine also wrote books and advocated for New Age spirituality. Her career spans over seven decades in film, television, and theater.
The complete filmography of Shirley MacLaine — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Shirley MacLaine — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Shirley MacLaine's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from Shirley MacLaine — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
Some People Think I Look Like a Sweet Potato, I Consider Myself a Spud with a Heart of Gold.
It Is Useless to Hold a Person to Anything He Says While He’s in Love, Drunk, or Running for Office.
I Had a Video Made of My Recent Knee Operation. the Doctor Said It Was the Best Movie I Ever Starred In.
An Actor Has Many Lives and Many People Within Him. I Know There Are Lots of People Inside Me. No One Ever Said I’m Dull.
I Can’t Define Longevity. I Don’t Know What It Means.
I’m Not Unaware of How I’m Perceived, I Just Don’t Care About It. Unless I Really Hurt Someone’s Feelings. I Care About That.
…I Was Always a Character Actress and Never a Sex Symbol. Even When I Was the Leading Lady, I Was a Character Actor.
I’ve Made so Many Movies Playing a Hooker That They Don’t Pay Me in the Regular Way Anymore. They Leave It on the Dresser.
My First Few Weeks in New York Were an Initiation into the Kingdom of Guts.
On Personal Power: You Are the Architect of Your Personal Experience.
On Mothering: If We Can Genuinely Honor Our Mother and Father We Are Not Only at Peace with Ourselves but We Can Give Them Birth to Our Future.
I’m Very Interested in How Insane Everybody Is. That’s Why I Write.
I Don’t Know What the Norm Is. the Latest Evaluations on Human Sexuality Say That We Are One-third Monogamous, One-third Serially Monogamous and One-third Polygamous. I Would Say There Should Be Some Kind of Form to Fill Out Before You Promise Monogamy.
I Do Miss the Stage. There’s Nothing Like It, Nothing. When I Did My One-woman Show and Played the Palace and Played the Gershwin and All That, I Did – What? – Eight Shows or Maybe More a Week. of Course You Can’t Do Anything Else, and You Can’t Run Quickly for a Cab in the Rain, and You Can’t Have a Drunken Love Affair. You Can’t Do Any of That. Because You’ve Got to Be Perfectly Healthy. and I Guess I Value Enjoying My Life a Little Bit More Than the Discipline These Days.
Once the Soul of India Gets into You, It Sits on Your Shoulder All the Time.
If I’m Click-worthy, That’s Because I’m Still Walking Upright.
Little-known facts about Shirley MacLaine — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Warren Beatty is Shirley MacLaine’s younger brother.
Her parents named her after Shirley Temple.
She speaks Japanese fluently.
She and Barbra Streisand celebrate their joint birthday together every year.
Warren Beatty initially cast her as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde, but dropped her when he decided to play Clyde himself.
In her memoir I’m Over That And Other Confessions, she claims to have been intimate with Danny Kaye and Robert Mitchum, among others. She told Oprah Winfrey in an April 2011 TV appearance that she was not attracted to Jack Lemmon because he was not dangerous and complicated.
She has appeared in two films selected for the National Film Registry: The Apartment 1960 and Being There 1979.
Right before a performance of Cinderella with the Washington School of Ballet, she broke her ankle but tied her toe shoe ribbon tighter and danced the role of the Fairy Godmother, calling an ambulance after the show.
She was close friends with the Rat Pack members, starring with all of them in Ocean’s Eleven 1960, and also worked with them in Some Came Running 1958, Cannonball Run II 1984, and Can-Can 1960.
She is the acting mentor of Julia Roberts, who is her neighbor.
She turned down the role of Diane Freeling in Poltergeist 1982 to play the Oscar-winning role of Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment 1983.
She had an open relationship with ex-husband Steve Parker; he lived in Japan with their daughter Sachi Parker while MacLaine focused on her career.
She took ballet as a child and always played the boy’s role due to being the tallest in her class.
She is close friends with actress Julie Christie, who lived with her brother Warren Beatty for nearly a decade.
In her book My Lucky Stars, she wrote that Yves Montand bet her husband he could seduce her during the production of My Geisha 1962; Montand won.
Her performance as Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment 1983 is ranked #81 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
As of 2018, she had never appeared in a feature film with her brother Warren Beatty.
She attended the same high school, Washington-Lee High School, as Sandra Bullock; both were cheerleaders. Her brother Warren Beatty also attended.
William Peter Blatty based the character of Chris O’Neil in The Exorcist 1973 on MacLaine, who was a friend of his.
She has appeared in four Best Picture Oscar-nominated films: Around the World in 80 Days 1956, The Apartment 1960, The Turning Point 1977, and Terms of Endearment 1983. All but The Turning Point won.
A frequent visitor to Houston, Texas, where she starred in Terms of Endearment 1983 and The Evening Star 1996; she always visits Tony’s Restaurant and orders a complete soufflé just for herself.
She is the only actress to be nominated for Best Actress Oscars twice for films in which her female co-star was also nominated in the same category: Anne Bancroft for The Turning Point 1977 and Debra Winger for Terms of Endearment 1983. Her win for the latter made her the only Best Actress winner nominated alongside a co-star.
She quit smoking in 2016.
She is the sister-in-law of actress Annette Bening.
She received Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contribution to American culture in Washington, DC on December 8, 2013.
She starred as Martha Levinson, the mother-in-law of Hugh Bonneville’s character, in the award-winning British drama Downton Abbey.
She received an honorary degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
As of 2018, she is the only actress to be nominated for the Best Actress Oscar twice for performances in Best Picture-winning films: The Apartment 1960 and Terms of Endearment 1983, winning for the latter.
Her father was American from Front Royal, Virginia; her mother was Canadian from North Sydney, Nova Scotia. She is of English, Scottish, and more distant Irish descent.
Her father was a professor and later a real estate agent; her mother was a teacher.
About 1975, while starring in a special musical show at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, VA, she walked out due to poor acoustics. Her vocal objections contributed to later renovations that improved the sound system.
Columbia originally wanted to cast her as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl 1968, but producer Ray Stark insisted on Barbra Streisand repeating her Broadway role.
On August 24, 2019, she was honored with a day of her film work during Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars.
She is a horse lover.
She is the mother of Sachi Parker with former husband Steve Parker.
She is one of 12 actresses who won the Best Actress Oscar for a movie that also won the Best Picture Oscar, including Terms of Endearment 1983. The others include Claudette Colbert, Luise Rainer, Vivien Leigh, Greer Garson, Louise Fletcher, Diane Keaton, Jessica Tandy, Jodie Foster, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank, and Frances McDormand.
As of 2009, she is one of six performers who won a Golden Globe for Best Actor/Actress in a Motion Picture Drama without being nominated for an Oscar for that same role, hers for Madame Sousatzka 1988.
She is grandmother to Frank Murray Jr. born 1996 and Arin Murray born 1998, children of her daughter Sachi Parker.
Her childhood dinner for many years consisted of tabasco and saltine crackers, often resulting in bad dreams about missing the bus to ballet class.
She played Tom Skerritt’s wife in The Turning Point 1977 and his neighbor in Steel Magnolias 1989, both directed by Herbert Ross.
She got the role in What a Way to Go! 1964 after Elizabeth Taylor dropped out.
She led a series of weekend-long higher-self seminars in the late 1980s teaching about New Age practices and techniques.
She was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967.
As of 2016, she is the 5th earliest surviving recipient of a Best Actress Oscar nomination, behind only Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Caron, Carroll Baker, and Joanne Woodward; she was first nominated in 1958 for Some Came Running.
She returned to work four months after giving birth to her daughter Sachi Parker to begin filming Hot Spell 1958.
She will receive the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement award on June 7, 2012, in Los Angeles.
She attended Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, VA.
She filmed Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay 2002 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, about Mary Kay Cosmetics founder Mary Kay Ash.
She released her book Sage-ing While Age-ing.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Shirley MacLaine.
Celebrities similar to Shirley MacLaine — same craft, ranked by reach.
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