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Shirley MacLaine
Shirley Maclaine at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival being interviewed by Access Hollywood, photo by Tony Shek
Birth name	Shirley MacLean Beaty
Born	April 24, 1934 (age 72) Richmond, Virginia, USA
Spouse(s)	Steve Parker (1954-1982)
Academy Awards
Best Actress 1983 Terms of Endearment Nominated: Best Actress 1958 Some Came Running 1960 The Apartment 1963 Irma la Douce 1977 The Turning Point
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Special - Comedy-Variety or Music 1976 Gypsy in My Soul
Golden Globe Awards
Most Promising Newcomer - Female (1955) Special Award (1959) Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 1961 The Apartment 1964 Irma la Douce Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama 1984 Terms of Endearment 1989 Madame Sousatzka Cecil B. DeMille Award (1998)
BAFTA Awards
Best Foreign Actress 1960 The Apartment 1961 Ask Any Girl

Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty April 24, 1934) is an Academy Award-winning American film and theatre actress, well-known not only for her acting, but for her devotion to her belief in reincarnation. She is also the writer of a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her new age beliefs, such as solipsism, as well as her Hollywood career. She is the older sister of Warren Beatty.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Private life 4 References in popular culture 5 Filmography 6 TV work 7 Academy Awards and nominations 8 External links

Named after Shirley Temple, Shirley MacLaine Beatty was born in Richmond, Virginia to father Ira of English descent and a Canadian mother of Irish and Scottish ancestry. Her family followed the Baptist faith.

MacLaine's father moved the family from Richmond to Norfolk, Virginia and then to Arlington, Virginia while she was still a child, eventually taking a position at Arlington's Jefferson Middle School. The MacLaines lived in a house in the Western part of the county off Wilson Boulevard where it was said that Shirley and brother, Warren, were known around their neighborhood as troublemakers in their pre-adolescent days.

Her early childhood dream was to be a ballerina. She took ballet classes fervently all throughout her youth and never missed one, and whenever they performed a piece, she would play the boy's role, due to being the tallest one there. She was so determined and so set on being a dancer that her recurring childhood nightmare was that she missed the bus to class.

She finally got to play a respectable woman's role, the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella," and while warming up backstage, she snapped her ankle. Many would bow out in this particular situation, but she was so determined that she simply tied the ankle ribbon on her toe shoes extra tight and go "on with the show." After it was over, she called for an ambulance.

Eventually, MacLaine decided that professional ballet wasn't for her. She said that she didn't really have the right body type and that she did not want to starve herself. Also, her feet weren't good enough (she didn't have really high arches and insteps). Nor was she an "exquisite beauty." At that point, she decided to switch her focus to acting.

Shirley attended Washington-Lee High School and was on the cheerleading squad and acted in school productions. The summer before her senior year, she went to New York to try acting on Broadway with some success. After she graduated, she went back and within a year she achieved her goal of becoming a star when she became an understudy to actress Carol Haney in The Pajama Game; Haney broke her ankle, and MacLaine replaced her.

A few months thereafter, with Haney still out of commission, director-producer Hal B. Wallis was in the audience, took note of MacLaine, and signed her to go to Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures.

She would later sue Wallis over a contractual dispute, a suit that is credited with having ended the old-style studio system of actor management.

Her first film was the Alfred Hitchcock film The Trouble with Harry in 1955. Her film career is now in its sixth decade. MacLaine was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role five times: in 1958 for Some Came Running, in 1960 for The Apartment, in 1963 for Irma la Douce, in 1977 for The Turning Point and in 1983 for Terms of Endearment (which she finally won). In 1975, she also received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature for her documentary The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir. She recently appeared as the maternal grandmother to Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette in In Her Shoes.

MacLaine was married to businessman Steve Parker until 1982. They had a daughter, Sachi Parker (b. 1956). Shirley filed for divorce after she learned that Steve had lied to her about his childhood in Japan, and that he had transferred all her money into the bank account of his Japanese mistress over the years.

In political circles, MacLaine is known for her former relationship with Andrew Peacock, a former Australian Liberal Party Prime Ministerial aspirant who was later appointed as Ambassador to the United States. She also has a close friendship with Ohio congressman, Dennis Kucinich, who was a candidate in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary.

MacLaine found her way into many law school casebooks when she sued Twentieth Century-Fox for breach of contract. She was to play a role in a film titled, Bloomer Girl, but the production was cancelled.

Twentieth Century-Fox offered her a role in another film, Big Country, Big Man, in hopes of getting out of its contractual obligation to pay her for the cancelled film. MacLaine's refusal led to an appeal by Twentieth Century-Fox to the Supreme Court of California in 1970, where the Court ruled against them. Parker v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 474 P.2d 689 (Cal. 1970).

• In the episode Pardon My Past of the WB series Charmed, Phoebe says the following to Prue, Piper and Leo: "Where's Shirley MacLaine when you need her?" as they're looking for a spell in the Book of Shadows about how to go back to a past life.
• In the cartoon series Animaniacs Dot often refered to her