Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty; April 24, 1934) is an American actress and author. With a career spanning over 70 years, she has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Volpi Cups, and two Silver Bears. 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 2014. MacLaine is one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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. MacLaine's career began during the final years of the Golden Age of Hollywood where 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. 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).
A six-time Academy Award nominee, MacLaine won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the comedy-drama Terms of Endearment (1983). 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).
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. She also made appearances in several television series, including Downton Abbey (2012–2013), Glee (2014), and Only Murders in the Building (2022). MacLaine has written many books regarding the subjects of metaphysics, spirituality, and reincarnation, as well as a best-selling memoir, Out on a Limb (1983).
Named after child actress Shirley Temple, who was six 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, a 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 filmmaker Warren Beatty, who changed the spelling of his surname for his career. Both were raised by their parents as Baptists. Her mother's brother-in-law was A. A. MacLeod, a member of the Ontario provincial legislature for the Communist Party in the 1940s.
While MacLaine was still a child, Ira Beaty moved the family from Richmond to Norfolk, Virginia, and then to Arlington, then to Waverly, and finally back to Arlington—where he worked at Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in Arlington—in 1945.
As a toddler, she had weak ankles and fell over with the slightest misstep, so her mother enrolled 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 because she was the tallest in the groups of girls. MacLaine eventually was cast in a substantial female role as the fairy godmother in Cinderella and, while warming up backstage, broke her ankle. She tightened the ribbons on her pointe shoes and completed the entire performance before calling for an ambulance.
Ultimately, MacLaine decided against making a career of professional ballet because she had grown too tall and felt unable to perfect her technique. She explained that hers was unlike the ideal body type, lacking the requisite "beautifully constructed feet" of high arches, high insteps, and a flexible ankle. She moved on to other forms of dancing as well as acting and musical theater.
MacLaine played baseball on a boys' team and held the record for the most home runs, earning her the nickname "Powerhouse." During the 1950s, the family resided in the Dominion Hills section of Arlington.
MacLaine attended Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia, where she was on the cheerleading squad and acted in school theatrical productions.
The summer before her senior year of high school in Arlington, Virginia, MacLaine went to New York City to try acting and had minor success in the chorus of a production of Oklahoma! that toured the subway circuit. After graduation, 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 place. A few months later, with Haney still injured, Jerry Lewis saw a matinee and urged film producer Hal B. Wallis to attend the evening performance with him, hoping to cast her in Artists and Models. Wallis signed her to work for Paramount Pictures.
1955–1959: Career beginnings and success
MacLaine began her career and quickly rose to fame during the final years of the Golden Age of Hollywood when she 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). Soon afterwards, she had the female lead in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. This was followed by Hot Spell, The Sheepman, and The Matchmaker (1958), all released in 1958.
MacLaine played Ginny Moorehead, who falls in love with Frank Sinatra's character, Dave, in Vincente Minnelli's adaptation of James Jones' novel Some Came Running, in the 1958 film of the same name. The film saw her co-starring with Dean Martin for the second time. For her role as Ginny Moorehead, she earned positive reviews and received her first nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. She appeared with Dean Martin in Career (1959), the third of their several films.
1960–1969: Acclaim and stardom
MacLaine appeared with Frank Sinatra in 1960's Can-Can, then made a cameo appearance in the Rat Pack movie Ocean's 11 (1960). MacLaine would become an honorary member of the Rat Pack.
In 1960, MacLaine starred in Billy Wilder's romantic drama The Apartment (1960). The film is set on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and follows an insurance clerk, C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon), who allows his co-workers to use his apartment for their extramarital affairs. He is attracted to the insurance company's elevator operator (MacLaine), who is already having an affair with Baxter's boss (Fred MacMurray). The film received widespread critical acclaim and emerged as a major commercial success at the box-office. It received ten Academy Award nominations, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction (Black and White) and Best Film Editing.