Shirley MacLaine

Actresses

Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty, April 24, 1934) is an American actress, singer, author, activist, and former dancer. Known for her portrayals of quirky, headstrong, eccentric women, she is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She is the older sister of Academy Award winning filmmaker and actor Warren Beatty.

MacLaine made her acting debut as a teenager with minor roles in the Broadway musicals Oklahoma! and The Pajama Game. Following minor appearances as an understudy in various other productions, she made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock‘s black comedy The Trouble With Harry (1955), with Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Mildred Natwick, and Jerry Mathers; winning the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress. She earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress in Vincente Minnelli‘s Some Came Running (1959), with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy, Nancy Gates, and Leora Dana.

Other films in the 1950s include Frank Tashlin’s Artists and Models (1955), with Martin, Jerry Lewis, Dorothy Malone, Eva Gabor, Anita Ekberg, and Eddie Mayehoff; Michael Anderson’s Around the World in 80 Days (1956), with Cantinflas, David Niven, and Robert Newton; George Marshall‘s The Sheepman (1958), with Glenn Ford, Leslie Nielsen, and Slim Pickens; Daniel Mann’s Hot Spell (1958), with Shirley Booth, Anthony Quinn, Earl Holliman, and Eileen Heckart; Joseph Anthony’s The Matchmaker (1958), with Booth and Anthony Perkins; Charles Walters’s Ask Any Girl (1959), with Niven and Gig Young; and Career (1959), with Martin, Tony Franciosa, and Carolyn Jones.

She received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in the Billy Wilder films The Apartment (1960), with Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, David Lewis, Willard Waterman, David White, Hope Holiday, and Edie Adams; and Irma la Douce (1964), with Lemmon. Other films in the early 1960s include Walter Lang’s Can-Can (1960), with Sinatra, Maurice Chevalier, and Louis Jourdan; William Wyler‘s The Children’s Hour (1961), with Audrey Hepburn, James Garner, and Fay Bainter; All in a Night’s Work (1961), with Martin, Cliff Robertson, and Charles Ruggles; Two Loves (1961), with Laurence Harvey, Jack Hawkins, and Nobu McCarthy; Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw (1962), with Robert Mitchum; and Jack Cardiff’s My Geisha (1962), with Yves Montand, Edward G. Robinson, and Bob Cummings.

Films in the mid to late 1960s include Anthony Asquith’s The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), with Rex Harrison, Ingrid Bergman, Omar Sharif, George C. Scott, Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau; J. Lee Thompson’s What a Way to Go! (1964), with Paul Newman, Mitchum, Martin, Gene Kelly, Bob Cummings and Dick Van Dyke John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965), with Peter Ustinov and Richard Crenna; Ronald Neame‘s Gambit (1966), with Michael Caine, Herbert Lom, Roger C. Carmel, and Arnold Moss; Vittorio De Sica‘s Woman Times Seven (1967), with Peter Sellers, Caine, Anita Ekberg, Alan Arkin, Vittorio Gassman, Rossano Brazzi, Philippe Noiret, Robert Morley, and Lex Barker; Joseph McGrath’s The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (1968), with Richard Attenborough and James Booth; and Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (1969), with John McMartin, Sammy Davis Jr., Ricardo Montalbán, Chita Rivera, Barbara Bouchet, Paula Kelly, and Stubby Kaye.

She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975), co-directed with Claudia Weill; and another nomination for Best Actress for Herbert Ross’s The Turning Point (1977), with Anne Bancroft, Tom Skerritt, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Leslie Browne, Martha Scott, Marshall Thompson, and Anthony Zerbe. Other films in the 1970s include Don Siegel‘s Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), with Clint Eastwood; Frank D. Gilroy Desperate Characters (1971), with Kenneth Mars; Waris Hussein’s The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972), with Perry King; and Hal Ashby’s Being There (1979), with Sellers, Jack Warden, Melvyn Douglas, Richard Dysart, and Richard Basehart.

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for James L. Brooks‘s Terms of Endearment (1983), with Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels, and John Lithgow. Other films in the 1980s include Loving Couples (1980), with James Coburn, Susan Sarandon, and Stephen Collins; A Change of Seasons (1980), with Anthony Hopkins, Bo Derek, Michael Brandon, Mary Beth Hurt, and K Callan; Hal Needham’s Cannonball Run II (1984), with Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Jamie Farr, Marilu Henner, Telly Savalas, Susan Anton, Catherine Bach, Jackie Chan, Richard Kiel, and Sinatra; John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka (1988), with Peggy Ashcroft, Shabana Azmi, Twiggy, Leigh Lawson, Geoffrey Bayldon, and Navin Chowdhry; and Herbert Ross‘s Steel Magnolias (1989), with Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, Tom Skerritt, Dylan McDermott, Kevin J. O’Connor, and Sam Shepard.

Films in the 1990s include Mike Nichols’s Postcards from the Edge (1990), with Meryl Streep, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Reiner, and Annette Bening; Christopher Monger’s Waiting for the Light (1990), with Teri Garr, Clancy Brown, Vincent Schiavelli, John Bedford Lloyd, Colin Baumgartner and Hillary Wolf; Beeban Kidron’s Used People (1992), with Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Marcello Mastroianni, Marcia Gay Harden, Sylvia Sidney, and Joe Pantoliano; Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), with Richard Harris, Robert Duvall, Sandra Bullock, and Piper Laurie; Hugh Wilson’s Guarding Tess (1994), with Nicolas Cage, Austin Pendleton, and Richard Griffiths; The Evening Star (1996), with Bill Paxton, Juliette Lewis, Miranda Richardson, Ben Johnson, Scott Wolf, George Newbern, Marion Ross, Mackenzie Astin, Donald Moffat, and Nicholson; and Richard Benjamin‘s Mrs. Winterbourne (1996), with Ricki Lake, Brendan Fraser, Miguel Sandoval, Ulrich Clement, and Loren Dean.

She directed and starred in The Dress Code (2000), with Alex D. Linz, Gary Sinise, Bates, Jennifer Tilly, and Joey Lauren Adams. Other films in the 2000s include Carolina (2003), with Julia Stiles, Alessandro Nivola, Mika Boorem, Randy Quaid, and Jennifer Coolidge; Nora Ephron‘s Bewitched (2005), with Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Caine, Jason Schwartzman, Kristin Chenoweth, Heather Burns, Jim Turner, Stephen Colbert, David Alan Grier, Michael Badalucco, Carole Shelley, and Steve Carell; Curtis Hanson’s In Her Shoes (2005), with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette; Rumor Has It… (2005), with Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Mark Ruffalo, Richard Jenkins, and Mena Suvari; and Closing the Ring (2007), with Christopher Plummer, Mischa Barton, Stephen Amell, Neve Campbell, Pete Postlethwaite, and Brenda Fricker.

Films in the 2010s include Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day (2010), with Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Héctor Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Carter Jenkins, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Emma Roberts, Roberts, Bryce Robinson and Taylor Swift; Richard Linklater‘s Bernie (2012), with Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), with Ben Stiller (who also directed), Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, and Sean Penn; and Michael Radford‘s Elsa & Fred (2014), with Plummer, Harden, Wendell Pierce, Jared Gilman, Chris Noth, and Scott Bakula.

Films in the mid to late 2010s include Wild Oates (2016), with Jessica Lange, Demi Moore, Billy Connolly, Santiago Segura, Howard Hesseman, Matt Walsh, Rebecca Da Costa; The Last Word (2017), with Amanda Seyfried, Anne Heche, Tom Everett Scott, Thomas Sadoski, Joel Murray, and Phillip Baker Hall; The Little Mermaid (2018), with William Moseley and Poppy Drayton; and Marc Lawrence’s Noelle (2019), with Bill Hader, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Billy Eichner, and Julie Hagerty.

TV movie and miniseries include Out on a Limb (1987), with John Heard, Charles, Anne Jackson, and Jerry Orbach; The West Side Waltz (1995), with Liza Minnelli, Jennifer Grey and Bates; Joan of Arc (1999), with Leelee Sobieski, Peter O’Toole, Chad Willett, Jacqueline Bisset, Powers Boothe, Neil Patrick Harris, Maximilian Schell, Maury Chaykin, Dukakis, Jonathan Hyde, Robert Loggia, and Peter Strauss; These Old Broads (2001), with Debbie Reynolds, Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jonathan Silverman; Salem Witch Trials (2002), with Kirstie Alley, Alan Bates, and Rebecca De Mornay; Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay (2002), with Shannen Doherty and Parker Posey; Coco Chanel (2008), with Malcolm McDowell; Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning (2008), with Hannah Endicott-Douglas, Barbara Hershey, and Rachel Blanchard; and A Heavenly Christmas (2016), with Kristin Davis and Eric McCormack.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

  • The Trouble with Harry (1955) – directed by Alfred Hitchcock
  • Artists and Models (1955) – directed by Frank Tashlin
  • 1956
  • Around the World in 80 Days (1956) – directed by Michael Anderson
  • Some Came Running (1958) – Vincente Minnelli
  • The Sheepman (1958) – directed by George Marshall
  • Hot Spell (1958) – directed by Daniel Mann & George Cukor (uncredited)
  • The Matchmaker (1958) – directed by Joseph Anthony
  • Ask Any Girl (1959) – directed by Charles Walters
  • Career (1959) – directed by Joseph Anthony
  • Ocean’s 11 (1960) – directed by Lewis Milestone – uncredited cameo
  • Can-Can (1960) – directed by Walter Lang
  • The Apartment (1960) – directed by Billy Wilder
  • The Children’s Hour (1961) – directed by William Wyler
  • 1961
  • All in a Night’s Work (1961) – directed by Joseph Anthony
  • Two Loves (1961) – directed by Charles Walters
  • Two for the Seesaw (1962) – directed by Robert Wise
  • My Geisha (1962) – Jack Cardiff
  • Irma la Douce (1963) – directed by Billy Wilder
  • The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) – directed by Anthony Asquith
  • What a Way to Go! (1964) – directed by J. Lee Thompson
  • John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965) – directed by J. Lee Thompson
  • Gambit (1966) – directed by Ronald Neame
  • Woman Times Seven (1967) – directed by Vittorio De Sica
  • The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (1968) – directed by Joseph McGrath
  • Sweet Charity (1969) – directed by Bob Fosse
  • Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) – directed by Don Siegel
  • Desperate Characters (1971) – directed by Frank D. Gilroy
  • The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972) – directed by Waris Hussein
  • The Nutcracker (1973) – directed by Boris Stepanstev – short
  • Circasia (1976) – directed by Brian MacLochlainn & John McColgan – short
  • The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975) – narrator – co-directed with Claudia Weill – also writer, producer – documentary
  • The Turning Point (1977) – directed by Herbert Ross
  • Being There (1979) – directed by Hal Ashby
  • 1980
  • A Change of Seasons (1980) – directed by Richard Lang
  • Loving Couples (1980) – directed by Jack Smight
  • Terms of Endearment (1983) – directed by James L. Brooks
  • Cannonball Run II (1984) – directed by Hal Needham
  • Out on a Limb (1987) – directed Robert Butler – also co-writer – miniseries
  • Madame Sousatzka (1988) – directed by John Schlesinger
  • Steel Magnolias (1989) – directed by Herbert Ross
  • Postcards from the Edge (1990) – directed by Mike Nichols
  • Waiting for the Light (1990) – directed by Christopher Monger
  • Defending Your Life (1991) – directed by Albert Brooks – cameo as herself
  • 1992
  • Used People (1992) – directed by Beeban Kidron
  • Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993) – directed by Randa Haines
  • Guarding Tess (1994) – directed by Hugh Wilson
  • The West Side Waltz (1995) – directed by Ernest Thompson – TV movie
  • Mrs. Winterbourne (1996) – directed by Richard Benjamin
  • The Evening Star (1996) – directed by Robert Harling
  • A Smile Like Yours (1997) – directed by Keith Samples – uncredited
  • Joan of Arc (1999) – directed by Christian Duguay – miniseries
  • The Dress Code (2000) – also director
  • These Old Broads (2001) – directed by Matthew Diamond – TV movie
  • Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay (2002) – directed by Ed Gernon – TV movie
  • Salem Witch Trials (2002) – directed by Joseph Sargent – TV movie
  • Carolina (2003) – directed by Marleen Gorris
  • Bewitched (2005) – directed by Nora Ephron
  • In Her Shoes (2005) – directed by Curtis Hanson
  • Rumor Has It… (2005) – directed by Rob Reiner
  • Closing the Ring (2007) – directed by Richard Attenborough
  • Coco Chanel (2008) – directed by Christian Duguay – TV movie
  • Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning (2008) – directed by Kevin Sullivan – TV movie
  • Valentine’s Day (2010) – directed by Garry Marshall
  • Bernie (2012) – directed by Richard Linklater
  • The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) – directed by Ben Stiller
  • Elsa & Fred (2014) – directed by Michael Radford
  • 2016
  • Wild Oats (2016) – directed by Andy Tennant
  • A Heavenly Christmas (2016) – directed by Paul Shapiro – TV movie
  • The Last Word (2017) – directed by Mark Pellington
  • The Little Mermaid (2018) – directed by Blake Harris & Chris Bouchard
  • Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver (2018) – directed by Dennis Gansel – English dub
  • Noelle (2019) – directed by Marc Lawrence
  • American Dreamer (202-) – directed by Paul Dektor