Shirley MacLaine truly is one of a kind.
The cinematic icon has steadily worked in movies for more than half a century. She has worked with such legendary directors as Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, danced for the celebrated choreographer Bob Fosse, and was the only female Rat Packer to hang with Frank, Dino and Sammy.
And she doesn’t show any signs of stopping soon.
She stars in three films this year, including In Her Shoes, which opened Oct. 7. It’s a delightful dramedy from L.A. Confidential‘s Curtis Hanson that centers on two very different sisters (Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz). During the course of the film, they both have to come to terms with their screwy upbringing as well as reconnect with a grandmother (MacLaine) they never knew they had, who is living in a senior citizen community in Florida. It’s a movie that gives one hope that even with dysfunction behavior, things can work out.
I had the opportunity to chat with MacLaine about In Her Shoes during her visit to Miami.
MacLaine swept into the room of her luxurious hotel looking absolutely stunning in a flowing orange blouse and white pants. She was trailed by all the necessary people and, most importantly, by her dog Terry. The fat and adorable Rat Terrier plopped right beside MacLaine as she sat on the couch.
It was obvious the Oscar-winning actress needed a bit of a break after an exhausting day talking to the press. So she took the opportunity to get a little something to drink and eat a few delicious chocolate-covered strawberries.
I jumped right in and told her she was one of the best things about In Her Shoes. I asked how she decided she wanted to do it.
“All families are dysfunctional,” she said, “and I loved the fact that this was another one, but that it gets resolved to some degree.”
Still settling in, MacLaine realized Terry was in dire need of a walk. She asked the PR rep if she wouldn’t mind taking him out. But the dog didn’t seem to want to go. He looked up at his master on the couch with a sad look, almost as if to say, “Do I really have to go? I just got comfortable here.” But off he went, like a good little dog.
On Curtis Hanson
Once Terry was out of the room, MacLaine turned her full attention back to me.
“I also really wanted to work with Curtis [Hanson],” she continued without really skipping a beat. “I wanted to see what a masculine director, who did 8 Mile, L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, would do with such a feminine story. I thought he wants to explore his own feminine side. Or the females in his life.”
Was that really the case with Hanson?
“Oh, he’d never answer anything,” she went on. “Curtis is a guy who can’t really order dinner. He doesn’t know how to say what he wants. And that’s a fantastic technique. It makes the actor think more than they ever did. He’s very slow about that so he gets your curiosity going. And finally you come up with what he was thinking, and it’s much better that way. It’s very subtle and very powerful technique. And boy, does he have stamina. He’s the tortoise and the hare story. Everyone is all speeding along and he’s the one who seems to be plodding and left standing at 4 in the morning. Such stamina.”
I pointed out that she has worked with some of the best. “Everybody but [Fred] Zinneman and [Spike] Lee,” she laughed. Did she think there’s anyone out there these days as good as, say, Alfred Hitchcock? “Martin Scorsese, and probably Curtis,” she replied.
Terry returned from the walk. MacLaine beamed. “My baby!” she said. But then she asked the most important question for any dog lover: “Did he do anything? Did he poop?”
He hadn’t, unfortunately. “He’s constipated from the travel,” she lamented. Poor Terry. He jumped right back on the couch and nuzzled next to his beloved master, content.
On Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz
“Two totally different actresses,” MacLaine said, stroking Terry. “[Toni Collette] is one of the best there is. Really. So much so that her natural beauty and glamour gets dwarfed when she commits to a character, so that you really think she is dowdy and fat and not too presentable. That’s how brave she is. I think this is as much her movie as Cameron’s.”
And Diaz? “I think she has the talent for really stretching. And I think she can be magnificent. She is so much eye candy that her agent ought to ask them to stay away from the legs and the body. Half is enough! Because she really has dramatic talent. And the body is so stunning and dazzling…it’s like you think a pretty girl is dumb? You think a dazzling body doesn’t have any brains or talent or depth. But she does.”
Which brings up a good point: where are all the good female roles these days?
“In the old days, it wasn’t [just about sex],” she explained. “Look at Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Myrna Loy and Jane Wyman. Rita Hayworth, yeah, maybe. I don’t know, maybe they knew how to write women’s parts better back then than they do now, even [though they now know] women better. Maybe they’re confused by knowing women better. But look at it now, it’s ridiculous. They are just not the right kind or enough good roles for women. What is that saying? The more they know about us, the less they know what to do with it.”
What are her thought processes were when she chooses a role.
“It’s all in the page. If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage,” she said adamantly. “All the script to me. In fact, I have a hard time reading the direction in parenthesis–the visual part. To me, it’s always been more about the dialogue. And the characters on how they reveal themselves through their faces and their words. I don’t think I could get through reading a script like Stealth.”
I started laughing. But she looked at me in all seriousness. “What would a script like that look like? It’s all special effects,” she said. “And that’s what we’ve got these days, isn’t it? Special effects.”
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On having quite a year
MacLaine has also been very busy. She has three films that have been or will be released in this year alone: Bewitched, Shoes and the upcoming Rob Reiner comedy Rumor Has It, co-starring Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner.
Of course, the critically panned Bewitched wasn’t necessarily a worthy notch in MacLaine‘s belt. “It just didn’t work,” the actress admitted. Still, the thought of her playing Endora was a perfect image. “One day I’d like to play her,” she added.
But Rumor Has It, being released on Christmas Day, has potential. It’s a comedy about the real-life family who inspired the eternal classic The Graduate.
“The guy who wrote it, Ted Griffin, his mother knew Mrs. Robinson, the real one,” MacLaine revealed. “I play Mrs. Robinson 30 years later. It’s about who she really was and she wasn’t like Anne Bancroft. She’s very eccentric and irascible. Annie played her, as Mike [Nichols] was telling me, angry. I don’t play her angry. I play her like she was. She didn’t give a crap about anything. And then her granddaughter [Aniston] comes to visit her and loves the eccentric grandmother. And ends up being bedded by the same guy [Costner, as the grown-up Dustin Hoffman part]. So he’s done the grandmother, the mother and the granddaughter!”
How was it working with Jennifer Aniston? “She was going through all that [divorcing Brad Pitt],” MacLaine said. “That was so hard. So hard. To see all of them go through the paparazzi. It didn’t exist in my day.”
How would that have worked back in the day if it did, especially with MacLaine‘s association with the Rat Pack, having all that fun splayed all over the tabloids.
“Oh, but that was!” she corrected. To some degree, yes, but it was certainly more glamorized than demonized, like it would be today. The Rat Pack still holds a fascination with the young today.
“The thing about the Rat Pack is that they didn’t care what anybody thought. And I think that’s so attractive to the young. They really didn’t care. Or rather they cared that people didn’t think they cared. And they spent a lot of time at it.”
And then there’s the Oscar buzz, already circulating around her performance in Shoes. Did MacLaine care about that stuff?
“Oh, yeah. I love winning those things. It’s terrific,” she said. “I mean, it’s your peers, people who know what it takes. They really understand what it takes. It’s a toss up between whether [winning an Oscar] is more of an honor [than winning an award from the] Screen Actors Guild. ‘Cause those guys really know. I love that. I would never get on some ridiculous high horse and say, ‘Oh, this is terrible, we shouldn’t be in competition with one another.’ We’re not anyway. I don’t know why George C. Scott and Marlon [Brando] felt that. Maybe that’s part of being a social activist. You’re not supposed to like the Oscars.”
On the future
The actress is also an accomplished author, with 10 books to her credit, including her bestseller Out on a Limb. Any new books in the works?
“I’m thinking about writing a book, something like Saging, Not Aging,” she said. “I’ve been forming it for a couple of years now. But the movies have something to do with it, the parts that you play. The more people regard you. The way your own self-imagery works in your relation to growing older.”
MacLaine explained how she enjoyed working with her senior co-stars in Shoes. “Loved those people,” she said. “No pretensions. Absolutely honest. Wise enough not too care what anyone thought. Mischievous. But I loved how they interrelated. Without political correctness or pretension.”
Does MacLaine think about slowing down?
“I’m not going to retire,” she said. “I don’t want to retire. I love making movies. I like the familial environment on the set. I love eccentrics. It’s full of eccentrics, this business. And I love sitting back and viewing all these eccentrics when everyone thinks I’m the prime eccentric. I think people expect me to be eccentric, to be blunt and direct.”
MacLaine paused for a moment and looked down at Terry, who was snoozing quietly.
“Also, being so close to my dog puts me in touch with so many more natural forces than if you don’t have an animal that goes with you everywhere whom you really treasure. I’m more in touch with nature, birds, worms, the clouds. The behavior of the wind. Snails and elks and bears.”
So is getting older more freeing?
“For me it is,” she said. “But for a lot of people, it’s terrifying. I can understand that. Particularly when you’re in a youth-addicted business like this is. But it’s about knowing yourself more and what you do with the wisdom. There’s a lot of invisible old people out there who don’t know what to do with their wisdom. A whole other issue.”
As I ended the interview, warmly shook her hand and gave Terry a pat on the head, I was pretty sure I only just scratched the surface of Shirley MacLaine‘s wisdom.
