Below is the lecture script for a lecture from my series 'The World of Pop Culture With Thomas Carruthers'...
In 1984 talking to TIME magazine, Shirley MacLaine said that her “strongest personality trait is the way I keep unsettling my life when most other people are settling down”. One things for certain, Shirley never settled down. Perhaps there is no more touted and no more difficult position in the world of the performing arts, than that of the triple threat. And for that matter perhaps there is no more critically acclaimed, persevering, timeless idol of that position than that of Shirley MacLaine. Born in 1934, into what she described as a “cliché-loving, middle-class Virginia family”, the little girl that would go on to define an entire era of theatrical leading lady, before then founding a filmic language for the kooky, strong woman with a smile to melt ice, Shirley MacLaine began as a chorus girl and ended up receiving an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012, one of the plethora of accolades she has received across her seven decade career in the world of theatre, TV, film and literature. Singer, dancer, actor, writer, host… One could never stop. So simply I will talk of MacLaine today as we all most likely see her, as again, perhaps, the entertainer of our time. With a career spanning as aforementioned over seven decades, it’s hard to know where to start, so today I think it’s best we simply start, at just that, the start.
Even when it came to her naming, MacLaine had showbiz flare in her blood, being named after the then six years old Shirley Temple, by her drama teacher mother Kathlyn Corrine Beatty, a woman MacLaine called “a tall, thin, almost ethereal creature with a romantic nature” and psychology professor father Ira. Of course at birth Shirley’s given name was that of Shirley Maclean Beaty. When she got into show-business, Shirley would drop the Beaty, and in a way leave it for her brother, who would change the spelling, add another T and become the super-star in his own right Warren Beatty. Even from the off people understood Shirley’s immense power as a performer and force of nature. When she was a kid, she played on an all-boys baseball team and held the record for most home runs in the team, earning the nickname that would be apt not just in this minor baseball career, but for the rest of her life; “Powerhouse”. Over the course of this lecture you’ll find I have the wonderful ability to quote MacLaine a lot, with her array of auto-biographical texts it’s one of the joys that we know so much about the woman in her own words, rather than the gossip of others. Speaking of her brother later in life for example she said “he was my kid brother and we were friends, in fact we were allies. We had to be because otherwise we found ourselves… vying for favour as a result of the competition unconsciously imposed on us by our parents”. From an early age, Shirley’s mother found the best way to deal with her toddler daughters terribly weak ankles was to enrol her at the age of three into the Washington School of Ballet. Later in life MacLaine would cite how she left the dance schoolbecause she was unable to perfect the technique, that and the fact her body was not the ideal type for the time, noting her own lack of “beautifully constructed feet”. An early anecdote of powerhouse perseverance was when a young MacLaine appeared in Cinderella as The Fairy Godmother, and while warming up, completely broke her ankle, before tightening her ribbons and proceeding to dance the entire role through the whole show before of course after calling an ambulance. MacLaine put it best when it came to what came next; “once I graduated from high school, there was no question what I was going to do”.
The summer before she left high school Shirley travelled to New York City and had a near immediate minor success appearing in the chorus of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! Before then going on to appear in the dancers ensemble for the musical Me and Juliet. It wasn’t long before MacLaine was given the role of understudy to actress Carol Haney in the Broadway production of The Pyjama Game. In a twist of ultimate irony perhaps, Haney injured her ankle and MacLaine replaced her on a matinee performance. Speaking of the event she said “all I thought of was ‘I’m going to drop the hat in ‘Steam Heat’ [her big number]. And I thought ‘what shoes am I going to wear?’ I knew Carol Haney’s feet were smaller than mine. I always thought about practical things at times like that. By the way I did drop the hat” and then she swore very loudly in front of the Broadway audience. At the end of the night the audience gave her a standing ovation, years later she would state the one question going through her head at the time “Am I ready for this?” MacLaine had not had one rehearsal when she first went on in the role, having only been assigned the role a week and a half earlier, but that didn’t matter, the response was sensational as aforementioned. Months later, Haney was still injured, MacLaine was still in the role and as the legend has it, just like in the movies, producer Hal B. Wallis came backstage and signed her to Paramount Pictures. Her first role on screen was in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry (1955) and already from the off her power on screen was undeniable. Her warmth, class, humour, charm, all of it made for the emerging powerhouse performer of the era. For the film, she won the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. That was just the beginning. MacLaine talked of her casting in these early pictures, “I represented all the plain broads in the audience who could never get a man unless they pinned him to the floor. I guess that’s when I first realized it was possible to make people laugh and cry at the same time”, her brand of course for the rest of her career. Times were tough for actresses at the time, after putting on a few pounds during 1955, following Hitchcock’s constant dinner invitations, the head of Paramount brought her in and told her “should we just tear up your contract? Are you going to stop eating?” Even her words on Billy Wilder, one of her most famed collaborators was with a distance, “I liked him, but I wouldn’t put him at the head of the line of women’s liberation”.
The 60’s were a mighty busy decade for MacLaine. I mean how many actresses can say they replaced Marilyn Monroe, twice, in Irma La Douche (1963) and What a Way To Go! (1964). 1963, the same year as La Douche also saw a scandal for MacLaine, an incident where she marched into the offices of The Hollywood Reporter and punched reporter Mike Connelly in the mouth, in fury over the way in which he had written about contract disputes with Hal B Wallis. The incident would lead to the New York Post headline “Shirley delivers a punchy line”. However the 60’s were a decade of crowning achievements with MacLaine taking the much coveted role of the lead in the film adaptation of Sweet Charity (1969), pipping out Gwen Verdon, the original critically acclaimed Charity of the stage. Verdon eventually went on to choreograph the filmwith her partner and the film’s director Bob Fosse. Fosse who had commented about MacLaine’s Pajama Game performance (which he choreographed) “you were good. Good energy”. MacLaine continues retrospectively, “It was from Fosse that I realized energy was the primary requirement for a good performance on the stage, on the screen, and in life”. However one can’t deny that the role that solidified MacLaine and still remains one of her towering achievements in film is as Fran Kubelik in Billy Wilder’s Best picture winning The Apartment at the very start of the decade in 1960. The tale of Jack Lemmon as Baxter, a man who climbs the ranks at his company by allowing his superiors to use his apartment for their extra-marital affairs, all the while falling for the delightful elevator girl, Fran, MacLaine. Of course the film finds its drama and heart when Baxter must deal with the fact that the head of the company wants his apartment too, to cheat on his wife, with his mistress, Fran. Sometimes advertising is wrong and sometimes it’s more than misleading, but the tagline for this fantastic film is perfect: “Movie-wise, there has never been anything like The Apartment. Love-wise, laugh-wise or otherwise-wise”. And it’s all true. A sensational Lemmon falls for an effortlessly charming and beautiful MacLaine, as he rises up the ladder of his work through more than nefarious deeds. C.C. Baxter and Fran Kubelik are a movie couple for the ages and paired with Wilder’s ingenious comedic and dramatic direction, the film just soars. It also happens to have one of my top five closing lines of all time, in “shut up and deal”. Is there a character easier to fall in love with than Fran Kubelick? Well maybe Meg Ryan’s Sally Alrbight, but all the same, Fran is a remarkably close second, and also Sally is undoubtedly in the MacLaine mould. The warmth of Fran’s character is constantly battling with the truth of the world that she has come to know. She'll make you laugh, she’ll make you cry, all whilst making you fall in love with her. The performance is one of the all time favourites of actress Charlize Theron who described it beautifully as “raw and real and funny… [making] this black and white movie feel like it’s in colour”.
Not everybody was a fan of MacLaine though. Don Siegel who directed her in Two Mules For Sister Sara (1970) commented “it’s hard to feel any great warmth to her. She’s too unfeminine, and has too much balls. She’s very, very, hard”. Anthony Hopkins, her co-star in A Change of Seasons (1980) called her “the most obnoxious actress I have ever worked with”. However MacLaine was also the subject of much love from many of the most famous men in Hollywood at the time, that of the Rat Pack. MacLaine became an honouree member of the group and it’s only female affiliate. She would appear in Ocean’s Eleven and Some Came Running (1958) alongside the men and they would teach her card games and ways in which to deal with live audiences. In Ocean’s Eleven it was in an un-credited cameo as ‘tipsy woman’. A virtue for gossip hounds of MacLaine’s many books is of course that she has spoken intimately many times of her marriage, her affairs and her many, many lovers, including co-stars, other stars of the time, major politicians and Lords. Names range from Robert Mitchum and Danny Kaye to Lord Mountbatten and Australian politician Andrew Peacock. She was married to Steve Parker from 1954 until 1982, they had one daughter Sachi. They met on West 45th street, four hours later, he asked her to marry him. MacLaine said “Steve and I met in 1952, but so intense was our involvement, we forgot to get married until 1954”. Steve Parker moved to Japan in 1956, Parker told MacLaine “If I stay in Hollywood, I’ll always be Mr MacLaine”. To Oprah Winfrey MacLaine described her relationship with her husband as open, allowing them to be with other people during the marriage, stating that she didn’t “think [they] could have stayed together 30 years any other way”. It would be very fair to say just how shocking in many ways to the commercial public MacLaine’s open sexuality was at the time. By 1977 it would be fair to say that MacLaine had done most any entertainer could wish to do, the name of her ’77 television special was even called The Shirley MacLaine Special: Where Do We Go From Here? She had had a storied early success on Broadway before conquering Hollywood, in films we have discussed as well as in many we haven’t yet, Being There (1979) and Gambit (1966) However it would be fair to say that perhaps a thorn in MacLaine’s side was that of her missing Oscar, following multiple nominations. She would find this Oscar with her turn in Terms of Endearment.
For me James L. Brooks 1983 family comedic drama Terms of Endearment (adapted from the novel of the same name by the late Larry McMurty) may very well be one of the most underrated movies of all time. "How can this be?" you ask? The film won multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Director. Well, I purely think the film is underrated as nobody talks about it anymore and when they do it is reduced simply to a "weepy". But this film is so funny, so brilliant and so exceptionally written. Yes, it makes you cry. But this film has so much more going for it and people seem to forget that with a really good film, those tears come from well-built characters and good writing that make you care when the tear-jerking moments do come about. This is pure film-making at its finest, in the world of drama and in the world of comedy. Shirley MacLaine and wows us again, with their pitch-perfect presentation of Mrs Greenway and her daughter. John Lithgow and Jeff Daniels offer the most sublime supporting cast and we haven’t even mentioned Jack yet. In any other world this could be Jack’s movie. But to have a film where Jack Nicholson is at the least the third best thing in it, now that is surely saying something. MacLaine and Winger are sublime, their familial chemistry and power of relation is really just that strong. Of course legendary is the pair’s rivalry behind the screen. In her autobiography “My Lucky Stars”, commented on some of the hostile moments between her and Debra Winger on the set. "The result was a bracingly complex mother-daughter bond onscreen, if not a pleasant set. We knew what we were doing a lot of the time, sparring back and forth," Winger said. "It was a very gritty way of working. People at Paramount thought we were crazy." MacLaine continued that Winger yelled at her to "get over here," when it was time to hit her marks on set. "'I heard you,' I said. 'I know marks when I see them,'" "'Good,' she said. 'How's this for a mark?' She turned around, walked away from me, lifted her skirt slightly, looked over her shoulder, bent over, and farted in my face." "I can't deny that we fought," Winger told the New York Times in 1986. "We're not having lunch together today. We challenged ourselves, and when we got tired of challenging ourselves, we challenged each other. But I think there was always a respect between the two of us."' I do also believe that after the shooting a clear sense of admiration reared from both counterparts, with MacLaine rushing to Winger at the Oscars before going to the podium and whispering to her “Half of this belongs to you”. Winger’s response; “I’ll take half”.
Brooks eventually settled on MacLaine for the
role of Aurora down to the simple fact that she was one of the only actresses
that read and was interested that “saw it as a comedy”. This is of course the
chief reason the film works as well as it almost objectively does. The film is certainly no out and
out comedy, but it is also not the weepy it is remembered as for a good hour
and forty minutes. By the time the film does reach its devastating climax
however, Brooks doesn’t allow us to have a grand goodbye scene between Aurora and
Emma. Again, realism is the key. No matter how painful it may be to an
audience, Brooks chooses to show a more realistic depiction of things, where a
lifelong husband is asleep and a mother who cares for her child like no other
is simply given the smallest of looks. For as painful as this moment is, it
only again furthers for me the amount of talent and quality we have on screen. For Winger and MacLaine really
can convey a ten minute farewell sequence in just one shared glance, and Brooks
really can feel confident in the effect this glance will have, for he has built
a film and a family saga up until that point that has told many stories, but
chiefly one; the story of a mother and a daughter. Still, one of the most emotionally effecting films
of all time. Still, one of the best of all
time.
This article containing the script of my lecture will continue next week.
- Thomas Carruthers
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