Comediva of the Week: Shirley MacLaine

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Shirley MacLaine is a bit of a show off, really.  The flame-haired spitfire lit up the big screen for the first time under the direction of the master himself, Alfred Hitchcock, in The Trouble With Harry.   She’s got just about every award you could name and you just know she could blow pretty much any modern comedienne (or comedian, for that matter) off the stage with just a well timed lift of those expressive eyebrows.  She’s also an accomplished author and documentarian.  Basically, she puts us all to shame.

MacLaine is turning 77 this month.  She was born Shirley MacLaine Beaty (you may recall her brother, Warren… he’s a little bit famous too).  Her father was a teacher and professor of psychology and her mother taught drama (must have been good, if her offspring are any indication).  Shirley’s introduction to show business was ballet lessons, which were her mother’s prescription for her chronically weak ankles.  She gave up the ballet when she decided she’d gotten too tall for it (she’s over six feet in pointe shoes) and decided on Broadway as an alternative.  Good thing too, because a convenient broken ankle rocketed her from understudy to star to new Hollywood “it girl” at a blinding speed.

There were men, of course, but when interviewed about her latest book, I’m Over All That: And Other Confessions, it seems clear that she’s more concerned about her 11-year-old rat terrier, Terry, than she is about romance.  As she writes in her new book, “I’d rather have a good, funny, loyal dog than a man.”

You speak truth, sister!

Though, to be quite honest, a good, funny, loyal man might be just as good.  Maybe even better.  After all, men don’t have to be walked.

MacLaine is also a new age spiritualist who has written about everything from UFOs to reincarnation (apparently she was once a gypsy girl in Spain).  When Craig Wilson of USA Today asked MacLaine what she thinks others think of her in a recent interview, promoting Over All That, MacLaine resorted to the elementary school classic whirl of the index finger/eye roll/whistle combination.  Meaning that people think she’s bonkers.

“But I don’t think so much anymore.  I think I have some credibility about what I think now,” she told Wilson.  As far as she’s concerned, she’s just been ahead of the curve. “Remember what people used to say about meditation?  Now everyone is doing it.”

But even if people are still poking fun, MacLaine doesn’t care.  In fact, she tells USA Today that she’s pleased to help other funny folk out by providing good material.  She just has one request of those who would tell Shirley MacLaine jokes, “That it’s funny.  I care if it lays a bomb.  I’ll even help them write the jokes!”

And that, comedivas, is the lesson we learn from the fabulous Shirley MacLaine.  Life is full of people who poke fun, say mean stuff and generally think that you’re, well (insert picture of your favorite comediva doing the “she’s crazy” finger twirl here).  Instead of letting them hurt you, demand that they honor your own personal kookiness with a decent joke.

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