Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty; April 24, 1934) is an American actress and author.

Known for her portrayals of quirky, strong-willed and eccentric women, she has received numerous accolades over her eight-decade career, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Volpi Cups and two Silver Bears.

Named after child actress Shirley Temple (who was 6 years old at the time), Shirley MacLean Beaty was born on April 24, 1934, in Richmond, Virginia.

Her father, Ira Owens Beaty, was a professor of psychology, public school administrator, and a real estate agent.

Her Canadian mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a drama teacher from Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

MacLaine's younger brother is the actor, writer, and director Warren Beatty; he changed the spelling of his surname for his career.

In religion, their parents raised them as Baptists.

Her uncle (her mother's brother-in-law) was A. A. MacLeod, a Communist member of the Ontario legislature in the 1940s.

While MacLaine was still a child, Ira Beaty moved his family from Richmond to Norfolk, and then to Arlington and Waverly, then back to Arlington eventually taking a position at Arlington's Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in 1945.

MacLaine played baseball on an all-boys team, holding the record for most home runs, which earned her the nickname "Powerhouse".

During the 1950s, the family resided in the Dominion Hills section of Arlington.

As a toddler, she had weak ankles and fell over with the slightest misstep, so her mother decided to enroll her in ballet class at the Washington School of Ballet at the age of three.

This was the beginning of her interest in performing.

Strongly motivated by ballet, she never missed a class.

In classical romantic pieces such as Romeo and Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty, she always played the boys' roles due to being the tallest in the group and the absence of males in the class.

Eventually, she had a substantial female role as the fairy godmother in Cinderella; while warming up backstage, she broke her ankle, but then tightened the ribbons on her toe shoes and proceeded to dance the role all the way through before calling for an ambulance.

Ultimately she decided against making a career of professional ballet because she had grown too tall and was unable to perfect her technique.

She explained that she didn't have the ideal body type, lacking the requisite "beautifully constructed feet" of high arches, high insteps and a flexible ankle.

Also slowly realizing ballet's propensity to be all-consuming, and ultimately limiting, she moved on to other forms of dancing, acting and musical theater.

She attended Washington-Lee High School, where she was on the cheerleading squad and acted in school theatrical productions.

The summer before her senior year of high school, MacLaine went to New York City to try acting, having minor success in the chorus of a production of Oklahoma! that toured the subway circuit.

MacLaine subsequently appeared in multiple roles throughout the 1950s, culminating in a Best Actress Oscar nomination in 1959 as she rose towards stardom during the later years of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

After she graduated, she returned and made her Broadway debut dancing in the ensemble of the Broadway production of Me and Juliet (1953–1954).

Afterwards she became an understudy to actress Carol Haney in The Pajama Game; in May 1954 Haney injured her ankle during a Wednesday matinee, and MacLaine performed in her placed.

A few months later, with Haney still injured, film producer Hal B. Wallis saw MacLaine's performance, and signed her to work for Paramount Pictures.

She made her film debut with Alfred Hitchcock's black comedy The Trouble with Harry (1955), winning the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress.

MacLaine made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry (1955), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress.

The Trouble with Harry was quickly followed by her role in the Martin and Lewis film Artists and Models (also 1955).

She rose to prominence with starring roles in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Some Came Running (1958), Ask Any Girl (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Children's Hour (1961), Irma la Douce (1963), and Sweet Charity (1969).

Soon afterwards, she had the female lead in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), a huge hit that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

This was followed by Hot Spell (1958), The Sheepman (1958) and The Matchmaker (1958 film), all released in 1958.

She also played a prostitute with a heart of gold who falls in love with Frank Sinatra's character in Vincente Minelli's adaptation of James Jones novel Some Came Running, in the 1958 film of the same name.

The picture also saw her co-starring with Dean Martin for the second time.

MacLaine starred in the sitcom Shirley's World (1971–1972) and played the eponymous fashion designer in the biopic television film Coco Chanel (2008), receiving nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award for the latter.

Her other prominent films include The Turning Point (1977), Being There (1979), Madame Sousatzka (1988), Steel Magnolias (1989), Postcards from the Edge (1990), In Her Shoes (2005), Bernie (2011), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), Elsa & Fred (2014), and Noelle (2019).

A six-time Academy Award nominee, MacLaine won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the comedy-drama Terms of Endearment (1983).

MacLaine has written numerous books regarding the subjects of metaphysics, spirituality, and reincarnation, as well as a best-selling memoir, Out on a Limb (1983).

She has been honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Tribute in 1995, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1998, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2013.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, MacLaine made her acting debut as a teenager with minor roles in the Broadway musicals Me and Juliet and The Pajama Game.

She also made appearances in several television series, including Downton Abbey (2012–2013), Glee (2014), and Only Murders in the Building (2022).