'I like men...I just don't understand them'
Shirley MacLaine is musing on what sparked her to write her new book, What If… ‘I began thinking about what we judge to be our priorities,’ she says, ‘and then a whole series of questions came to my mind. What if this is wrong? What if we didn’t do that? What if we radically re-thought the things that are important?
‘This started on Good Friday and that in itself made me stop and think. What was so good about it? In other words, we accept everything we’ve been taught and we do so blindly. What if we started questioning everything?’
At 79, Shirley has long since danced to her own tune. And she’s certainly lost none of her joie de vivre. The distinctive capped haircut is the colour of sundried wheat. The eyes glitter with mischief. She moves with a dancer’s grace in her rich purple trouser suit. She’s neither fat nor thin. ‘I’m not a glutton,’ she says, ‘but I hate to starve myself. And, except for the obvious physical limitations, I’m enjoying getting older.’
She loves the fact, she says, that next April her age will start with a new number. ‘I like telling people that next birthday I’ll be 80 – but only if I’ve just had my hair tinted and I’m looking good. I’m less likely to say it when I’m looking like Grandma Moses [American folk artist].’
Typically, because she’s nothing if not transparent, Shirley is an enthusiastic proponent of cosmetic surgery. ‘If you get a good doctor, why not? I had a facelift when I was 50, right after I made Terms Of Endearment [for which she won a Best Actress Oscar], and I let the surgeon be the judge. It was a big success. But I wouldn’t do it again. I don’t want my face to lose all its character. I want it to be as agile as my mind.’
It is that agility you see at work in her new book, a series of questions, each of which begins with the challenging words: What if… Some of it, as you’d expect, is borderline barmy. One ‘chapter’, for instance, asks: What if Jesus was an astronaut? But there’s plenty else to enjoy from her lengthy account, for instance, of receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute last year, to her 140 defi nitions of love.
So where do all these ideas come from? ‘I remember talking to Norman Mailer, such a great writer, and I asked him about the origins of his books. He didn’t use the word “channelling” but he said that, when he’s writing, it was as if he somehow wasn’t there. The ideas just flowed on to the page. So I’d never made a list of ‘What Ifs’, but when I started, I couldn’t stop. Who knows where they came from? Some other super-consciousness was putting it all together.’
And those definitions of love? She laughs, ‘Who knows what love is? We keep experimenting with it through marriage and having children and so on. I still don’t have the answer to the love question. As far as I know, none of the Asian languages have a word for love. This is a romanticised feeling peculiar to the West. But it did make me realise that the love I have for my dogs has never been surpassed by the love I’ve felt for any human being.’
Shirley has been married just once to the late producer-turned-impresario Steve Parker, father of her only daughter, Sachi (‘It means happy child in Japanese’) but it was what might euphemistically be called an open marriage, which finally ended in divorce.
‘One of the smartest continual things I’ve done for decades now,’ she says, with a happy grin, ‘is to dodge the marriage bullet. I have my two terriers, Terry and Buddy-Bub, and I have people around me all the time. I’m not quite a recluse yet although I really love being alone. I’m very liberal but I do not feel the need to compromise by sharing my life with a man. Don’t get me wrong. I like men. It’s just that I don’t understand them.’
She’s lived with a number down the years. ‘My limit was usually between three and five years. A lot of them had a problem with sometimes being referred to as Mr MacLaine. I understand that, although I don’t think the same would be true for a woman. But a lot of men seem to feel emasculated if they’re called by their female partner’s surname. It’s why more of them ought to try to locate the feminine in themselves and not be afraid of it.’
Collecting Oscars in 1983 (from left to right): James L Brooks (Best Director), Shirley MacLaine (Best Actress) and Jack Nicholson (Best Supporting Actor) for Terms Of Endearment
It’s one of the reasons she’s quietly despairing of the fact that the world is still mostly run by men. ‘I so wish there were more women in positions of power, even if it were someone like Margaret Thatcher. At least she offered a feminine perspective on problems and their solutions. It made a change from the familiar testosteronefilled approach. But who knows? Hillary Clinton is a very clever woman. Maybe we’ll yet see her as president.’
Mrs Clinton may be defeated by her age. But that hasn’t been the case with Miss MacLaine. ‘Actresses famously hit a career buffer when they move into their middle years,’ she says, ‘although that wasn’t my experience. But, while I may have been the leading lady in all my pictures, I’ve nonetheless always been a character actress. I wasn’t rivalling the great beauties of the day. I was never the sexy babe.’ And that helps to explain, she thinks, the longevity of her career.
‘It’s also true of Meryl Streep. Isn’t she the best? I’m also a big fan of Nicole Kidman. We worked together on Bewitched. It’s not just that she’s indisputably a beauty but she’s also extremely talented at becoming other people. And everything Judi Dench does is just brilliant.’
When Alfred Hitchcock first brought Shirley to LA to star in The Trouble With Harry, she was only 21 and had been spotted by his talent scouts in a Broadway show. Despite her age, she wasn’t in the least intimidated in front of the camera. ‘I worked out quite quickly that we could always do it again. Hitch told me I had the guts of a bank robber. I never took Hollywood seriously. Oh, I took the work seriously, just not the hoopla that went with it.’
She feels sorry, she says, for today’s youngsters in the public eye. ‘Contemporary celebrity culture is all to do with being famous for 20 minutes, with branding, with merchandise and so on and nothing whatever to do with the work. I really feel for Halle Berry and Reese Witherspoon and all these talented young women. They’re battling the paparazzi every time they open their front door. I’m so glad I’m not a part of any of that.’
She doesn’t even like watching herself on screen. ‘If I’m surfing the channels on television and I come across one of my old films, I always move on. But I did like my performance in Terms Of Endearment. It combined comedy and drama; something I’ve always tried to achieve, and the script was excellent. You know what they say: if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage.’
A late plum in her long-running CV has been her role as Martha Levinson, mother to the Countess of Grantham (played by Elizabeth McGovern) in the global hit, Downton Abbey. We’ll see her again in this year’s Christmas special. ‘Julian Fellowes has written such a brilliant character in Martha, a wonderful combatant to Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess. It’s such a bonus at this stage in my career. I adore it.’
But don’t talk to her of retirement. ‘It’s simply not in my lexicon. If the right script turns up, I’ll take it. And, fortunately, I’ve reached the age where I can play women who can’t remember what they were going to say and who bump into the furniture and do it all for real.’ She chuckles contentedly.
She’s given up planning, though. ‘I don’t even plan from one day to the next. I’m loving that feeling of just letting life happen to me,’ she says. ‘Want to know my recipe for a happy life? Live in the moment.’
What If… by Shirley MacLaine, is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £14.99.
The two-hour Downton Abbey Christmas special will be broadcast on ITV1 on Christmas Day at 9pm.
‘This started on Good Friday and that in itself made me stop and think. What was so good about it? In other words, we accept everything we’ve been taught and we do so blindly. What if we started questioning everything?’
At 79, Shirley has long since danced to her own tune. And she’s certainly lost none of her joie de vivre. The distinctive capped haircut is the colour of sundried wheat. The eyes glitter with mischief. She moves with a dancer’s grace in her rich purple trouser suit. She’s neither fat nor thin. ‘I’m not a glutton,’ she says, ‘but I hate to starve myself. And, except for the obvious physical limitations, I’m enjoying getting older.’
She loves the fact, she says, that next April her age will start with a new number. ‘I like telling people that next birthday I’ll be 80 – but only if I’ve just had my hair tinted and I’m looking good. I’m less likely to say it when I’m looking like Grandma Moses [American folk artist].’
Typically, because she’s nothing if not transparent, Shirley is an enthusiastic proponent of cosmetic surgery. ‘If you get a good doctor, why not? I had a facelift when I was 50, right after I made Terms Of Endearment [for which she won a Best Actress Oscar], and I let the surgeon be the judge. It was a big success. But I wouldn’t do it again. I don’t want my face to lose all its character. I want it to be as agile as my mind.’
It is that agility you see at work in her new book, a series of questions, each of which begins with the challenging words: What if… Some of it, as you’d expect, is borderline barmy. One ‘chapter’, for instance, asks: What if Jesus was an astronaut? But there’s plenty else to enjoy from her lengthy account, for instance, of receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute last year, to her 140 defi nitions of love.
So where do all these ideas come from? ‘I remember talking to Norman Mailer, such a great writer, and I asked him about the origins of his books. He didn’t use the word “channelling” but he said that, when he’s writing, it was as if he somehow wasn’t there. The ideas just flowed on to the page. So I’d never made a list of ‘What Ifs’, but when I started, I couldn’t stop. Who knows where they came from? Some other super-consciousness was putting it all together.’
And those definitions of love? She laughs, ‘Who knows what love is? We keep experimenting with it through marriage and having children and so on. I still don’t have the answer to the love question. As far as I know, none of the Asian languages have a word for love. This is a romanticised feeling peculiar to the West. But it did make me realise that the love I have for my dogs has never been surpassed by the love I’ve felt for any human being.’
Shirley has been married just once to the late producer-turned-impresario Steve Parker, father of her only daughter, Sachi (‘It means happy child in Japanese’) but it was what might euphemistically be called an open marriage, which finally ended in divorce.
‘One of the smartest continual things I’ve done for decades now,’ she says, with a happy grin, ‘is to dodge the marriage bullet. I have my two terriers, Terry and Buddy-Bub, and I have people around me all the time. I’m not quite a recluse yet although I really love being alone. I’m very liberal but I do not feel the need to compromise by sharing my life with a man. Don’t get me wrong. I like men. It’s just that I don’t understand them.’
She’s lived with a number down the years. ‘My limit was usually between three and five years. A lot of them had a problem with sometimes being referred to as Mr MacLaine. I understand that, although I don’t think the same would be true for a woman. But a lot of men seem to feel emasculated if they’re called by their female partner’s surname. It’s why more of them ought to try to locate the feminine in themselves and not be afraid of it.’
Collecting Oscars in 1983 (from left to right): James L Brooks (Best Director), Shirley MacLaine (Best Actress) and Jack Nicholson (Best Supporting Actor) for Terms Of EndearmentIt’s one of the reasons she’s quietly despairing of the fact that the world is still mostly run by men. ‘I so wish there were more women in positions of power, even if it were someone like Margaret Thatcher. At least she offered a feminine perspective on problems and their solutions. It made a change from the familiar testosteronefilled approach. But who knows? Hillary Clinton is a very clever woman. Maybe we’ll yet see her as president.’
Mrs Clinton may be defeated by her age. But that hasn’t been the case with Miss MacLaine. ‘Actresses famously hit a career buffer when they move into their middle years,’ she says, ‘although that wasn’t my experience. But, while I may have been the leading lady in all my pictures, I’ve nonetheless always been a character actress. I wasn’t rivalling the great beauties of the day. I was never the sexy babe.’ And that helps to explain, she thinks, the longevity of her career.
‘It’s also true of Meryl Streep. Isn’t she the best? I’m also a big fan of Nicole Kidman. We worked together on Bewitched. It’s not just that she’s indisputably a beauty but she’s also extremely talented at becoming other people. And everything Judi Dench does is just brilliant.’
When Alfred Hitchcock first brought Shirley to LA to star in The Trouble With Harry, she was only 21 and had been spotted by his talent scouts in a Broadway show. Despite her age, she wasn’t in the least intimidated in front of the camera. ‘I worked out quite quickly that we could always do it again. Hitch told me I had the guts of a bank robber. I never took Hollywood seriously. Oh, I took the work seriously, just not the hoopla that went with it.’
She feels sorry, she says, for today’s youngsters in the public eye. ‘Contemporary celebrity culture is all to do with being famous for 20 minutes, with branding, with merchandise and so on and nothing whatever to do with the work. I really feel for Halle Berry and Reese Witherspoon and all these talented young women. They’re battling the paparazzi every time they open their front door. I’m so glad I’m not a part of any of that.’
She doesn’t even like watching herself on screen. ‘If I’m surfing the channels on television and I come across one of my old films, I always move on. But I did like my performance in Terms Of Endearment. It combined comedy and drama; something I’ve always tried to achieve, and the script was excellent. You know what they say: if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage.’
A late plum in her long-running CV has been her role as Martha Levinson, mother to the Countess of Grantham (played by Elizabeth McGovern) in the global hit, Downton Abbey. We’ll see her again in this year’s Christmas special. ‘Julian Fellowes has written such a brilliant character in Martha, a wonderful combatant to Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess. It’s such a bonus at this stage in my career. I adore it.’
But don’t talk to her of retirement. ‘It’s simply not in my lexicon. If the right script turns up, I’ll take it. And, fortunately, I’ve reached the age where I can play women who can’t remember what they were going to say and who bump into the furniture and do it all for real.’ She chuckles contentedly.
She’s given up planning, though. ‘I don’t even plan from one day to the next. I’m loving that feeling of just letting life happen to me,’ she says. ‘Want to know my recipe for a happy life? Live in the moment.’
What If… by Shirley MacLaine, is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £14.99.
The two-hour Downton Abbey Christmas special will be broadcast on ITV1 on Christmas Day at 9pm.