Shirley MacLaine Biography (2)

Shirley MacLaine is an award-winning actress whose performances on screen, stage and television have earned her world-wide acclaim for many years. Cutting a unique swath across the American scene, she is also the author of eight best-selling books, an Oscar-nominated documentarian, and a political and civil rights activist. Shirley MacLaine won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1984 for her indelible performance as Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment. She has been nominated for an Academy Award six times in all, for the films Turning Point, The Apartment, Some Came Running, and Irma La Douce, and for producing and co-directing The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir.

The most recent of her 40 starring roles in motion pictures include Guarding Tess, Steel Magnolias, Postcards From the Edge, Used People, and Madame Sousatzka. Notable among her earlier films are Being There, Sweet Charity, Two for the Seesaw, The Children's Hour, Around the world in 80 Days, and her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry.

MacLaine's honors include two Golden Globe Awards, five Emmy Awards and many international prizes. She has received the Best Actress award from the British Film Academy, twice from the Venice Film Festival, the Berlin Festival's Silver Bear and two Donatello awards, Italy's Oscar. Non-acting tributes include being named woman of achievement by the Anti-Defamation League and woman of the Year by Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club.

Returning often to her first love of dance in one-woman musical shows like If They Could See Me Now (which also became an Emmy winning television special), MacLaine appears in Las Vegas, London and all over the world. Stage shows such as Gypsy in My Soul and Shirley MacLaine at the Lido also became television specials, and the recent Out There Tonight easily sold-out as a world tour.

From the autobiographical Don't Fall Off the Mountain in 1970 to her recently published book, My Lucky Stars, a reminiscence of her 40 years in Hollywood, MacLaine's writing reflects her professional journey, world travels and inquisitive mind.

Born in Virginia, Shirley MacLaine became a Broadway musical star at 19 when, prepared to understudy the lead, she took over the show when Carol Haney broke her ankle. The newcomer was seen by Hollywood producer Hal Wallis who immediately signed her to her first movie contract.

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