Shirley MacLaine
by Live Music Head
I’ve read several of her books.
You know,
the New Age books that tell of her beliefs in
reincarnation and past lives,
that some people like to make fun of,
including U.S. President Barack Obama who,
during a speech at
her 2013 Kennedy Center Honors induction said:
“Now, when you first become President,
one of the questions people ask you is:
‘What’s really going on at Area 51?’
When I wanted to know,
I called Shirley MacLaine.”
She’s one of my favourite women of all-time.
Her younger brother is none other than Warren Beatty.
She’s also one of my favourite actresses of all-time.
Of her films, my top picks would be
The Apartment
(where she plays Fran Kubelik,
the heartbroken elevator operator of
a 1960s swingin' NYC office building;
the same office building where
the lyin’, cheatin’ personnel director
and someone-else's-husband
works,
that she’s having an affair with,
and the late-great Jack Lemmon saves her from);
Terms of Endearment
(the film that received 11 Oscar nominations
at the 56th annual Academy Awards
and won Best Picture and Best Actress for MacLaine
as fiesty Aurora Greenway who has a fling with
the alcoholic, womanizing, retired astronaut who lives next door,
played by Jack Nicholson;
the same Aurora Greenway,
meddlesome mother
who throws a great tantrum at the hospital nursing station
when they neglect to bring her cancer-ridden daughter
a shot of morphine;
a tantrum that anyone who's spent time
in a cancer hospital watching someone die
can relate to)...
(where she plays Weeza Boudreaux,
a grouchy, but lovable two-time widow who,
for the past 40 years,
has been in a really bad mood.
I highly recommend you look this one up!)
Then there’s her recent role on Downton Abbey
(the critically-acclaimed British period drama
which, of late,
has turned into one of my all-time favourites as well,
along with Mad Men).
MacLaine plays Martha Levinson,
the wealthy, quick-witted, acid-tongued mother of Cora,
the Countess of Grantham,
from new-world America.
In a scene from season three,
Levinson teases the quick-witted
and equally as acid-tongued Violet,
the Dowager Countess of Grantham,
of the old world
(played by the great Dame Maggie Smith), with the singing of that lovely sentimental waltz
(oh, how I do love a waltz),
a song that,
for me,
will forever be associated with The Rose
otherwise known as Bette Midler,
that other all-time favourite woman of mine...
The official website for Shirley MacLaine...
