Shirley MacLaine on a life in pictures

At 90, veteran actress and Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine was in high spirits. As she looked at photos from her long career, mostly shot in black and white, she remarked, “Where are the nude photos?”

In a picture of her sitting on the hood of a Cadillac in the Paramount parking lot, she said: “Here, I'm just trying to be shy on purpose. My God. What an idiot!”

And another: “Oh, I wanted to see how my legs were photographed.”

You photographed well! “Well, I was born with good legs,” she admitted.

MacLaine always had a spark of seduction. She was a pixie-haired triple threat – singer, dancer and actress. She could turn the heads of every well-known Hollywood star, and even more, like Dean Martin, who she described as the funniest person she had ever met. She says she had a crush on him, but it never developed into a romantic relationship: “No! I was kind of afraid that if I got that close to him he would be less funny,” she said. “And I think the humor meant more to me.”

Her image of this non-loving person once adorned MacLaine's Santa Fe home along with hundreds of others, from fellow Rat Packers to politicians. She called it her “wall of life.” “I just started filling an empty wall and I really liked it,” she said.

She has just organized this wall of life into a captioned photo memoir titled “The Wall of Life.”

It begins where she grew up in Virginia, the daughter of two educators and the older sister of aspiring actor and Oscar-winning director Warren Beatty. “He was a little puppy and I took care of him and took care of him,” MacLaine said.

While Warren waited until college to begin acting, Shirley changed her last name to her middle name and danced her way to New York before she even graduated high school.

She attributes it all to two teachers who gave me prophetic advice: “I remember the day they sat me down and told me I was too expressive while dancing. Maybe I should think about acting.”

As the story goes, MacLaine was cast as an understudy in the original Broadway production of “The Pajama Game.” When star Carole Haney injured her ankle, MacLaine was thrown onto the stage with just five minutes' notice. “I never had a rehearsal,” she said.

She did it, or at least Alfred Hitchcock thought she did. He cast her in his next film, “The Trouble with Harry.” It was her first film.

She ate Hitchcock lunch almost every day: “I had these huge Hitchcock meals!” she laughed. “Makeup and hair came to me and said, 'Look, you're going to gain weight,' and I did! I gained 25 pounds.”

She says producer Hal Wallis was also hungry for her talent, perhaps even more so. As she recalls, on her first day, he greeted her at that famous gate on the Paramount lot: “He left his office and then walked toward my car. I rolled down the window. He leaned in and stuck his tongue down my throat.

He later gave her a sports car but didn't apologize. “What an idiot,” MacLaine said.

She was newly married at the time, to the only man she had ever married, businessman Steve Parker, whom she described as the love of her life.

They soon had a daughter, Sachi Parker. Sachi's parents had a notoriously open marriage – MacLaine spent most of his time in New York and Hollywood, while Parker and her daughter lived mostly in Japan.

She admits that she was an unconventional mother and an unconventional wife.

Her past affairs (if you can call them that) were hardly secret. She was pretty open about almost everyone. Still, she also said, “I don’t think I was that attractive. For a while I think, 'Oh God, I'm not sexy-attractive.' But then I had my relationships and her Do I think so.”

She was as open with those she had never been with as Jack Nicholson. When she won her Oscar for her role opposite Nicholson in “Terms of Endearment,” he couldn't keep a straight face as she thanked him: “Ever since his chicken salad sandwich scene in 2000, I've wanted to do the funny one Jack Nicholson's chemistry work “Easy Pieces”, and having him in bed was a great joy for me!”

She never stopped inhabiting unforgettable characters. In films like “Steel Magnolias” and “Postcards from the Edge” she found roles that suited her and her age. She was in her late 70s when she joined the cast of the television series “Downton Abbey,” and she was already in her 80s when she appeared in “Only Murders in the Building.”

For someone who famously claims to have lived multiple past lives, photos of her current life certainly look spectacular. No wonder she believes people from the afterlife have come back to talk to her about it, like Cecil B. DeMille, who died nearly 40 years before receiving the lifetime achievement award named after him: “I will receive this award “I'll take it home with me,” and of course I'll talk to Mr. DeMille directly later,” she said.

MacLaine still lives in Santa Fe. She says she fits in here: “I love the old antique feel that is still there. It reminds me of myself!”

She is aware that time is running out to satisfy all her curiosity, but she is very open about not being afraid of dying: “Oh no. I’m kind of interested in going there,” she said. “I am looking forward to being part of the heavenly experience. I really am.”

But at least for now, Shirley MacLaine isn't going anywhere.

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The story was produced by Reid Orvedahl. Editor: Mike Levine.

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