Shirley MacLean Beaty--sister of Warren Beatty--became
a performer at the age of 4 and in 1954 a likely star when the
Gods of Show Business arranged for film producer Hal Wallis to
catch her the night she (now Shirley MacLaine) replaced the stricken
Carol Haney in The Pajama Game. A gamine in her earliest Hollywood
movie appearances, Shirley MacLaine proved equally effective in
both dramas and comedies, acquiring sufficient depth to give her
fragile, desperately lonely turn in Vincente Minnelli's 1959 Some
Came Running a truly tragic feel. Quite busy through the 1960s,
MacLaine essayed memorable and sympathetic characters for whom
sex and identity was, often to their unhappiness, linked, including
her two great collaborations with Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder,
The Apartment and Irma la Douce. In the mid-'70s, MacLaine turned
her attention to documentaries and writing, endeavors reflecting
her interests in feminism, politics, and spirituality. A new richness
entered her performances beginning in 1977 with The Turning Point,
and her subsequent string of mature parts has included several
remarkable portraits of complex women. Shirley
MacLaine films include
Evening Star
The Apartment
Postcards From the Edge
Steel Magnolias
Terms of Endearment
Some Came Running
Irma La Douce
Sweet Charity
The Turning Point
Two Mules for Sister Sara
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