Curtain Call with David Spatz - Guest: Shirley MacLaine

from our studio in Atlantic City and tonight from the Tropicana Casino and Resort and 1994 I'm David spats and coming up next she's the original space cadet of acting Shirley MacLaine joins me on tonight's edition of curtain call and it all starts right now [Music] [Music] I think yeah so every two years we get I get to look at you and what venues for people like me to play or less than this mm-hmm I know and it's a sad commentary on what's going on with entertainment in America today but we'll have to do another show on that I gotta start by relating more of a story than the asking a question that is it took place right here at trop well I was walking through the lobby and I noticed one of the light boxes that was billboarding your appearance here and there was a young couple guy and a girl maybe mid late 20s and they were looking at one one's pointing the plans gonna be here yeah this is what did she do and and you know that's what do you mean what did she do she's an actress but what is she gonna do here in a casino are you gonna talk about her movies and the other one says I never thought about that I know how does it make you feel em you know it's confusing yeah every time I do a picture that's a hit people get confused because particularly I'm playing all these wonderful old character act parts I love it too but then they every time a picture is a hit they think that's what I do or if I'm on the stage like if I play Broadway or the Gershwin with Frank at Radio City or whatever that's what they think I do for a while and when you do that for a while you don't do a picture it's confusing I do too many things so people can't fit me into into a category but this is where I was born this is how it all begins the stage is the roots for those of you under 35 or so don't know you started out in the chorus it was the old let me see what Carol Haney in pajama game pajama game it's the old success story you know the understudy waits in the wings and it really it really honestly happened on top of that I was going to turn in my notice that night because I thought well Carol will never be out she's a true gypsy she would go on with a broken neck and every now and then Gwen Verdon was out in KenKen and I had my notice in my pocket and was ready that night to say I think I'll go over and understand Concannon understudy rendered I ride at the stage door and there was Bob Fosse Hal Prince and Jerry Robbins lined up saying where have you been because I was 15 minutes late for my little chorus part they said you're on Carol Haney sprained her ankle she can't work for a long time and all I could think of was I'm going to drop the Hat and steamy dancer all right so Hal Prince and and Jerome Robbins they're all standing there at the stage where they're telling you you going one what's going one inside you at that moment what what are you thinking about it sir but I had never heard my singing voice on stage before oh they had given me some singing lines because I could sing and I was I could hit the second-last road about but I had never rehearsed no I hadn't I'd only looked at the that Carol and the roll from the wings I had never felt it in my body or felt it in my face or my words or keys for me mmm thought those things last I will never fit into her shoes she had little tiny feet she and I were the same height but she were much smaller shoe tonight fortunately I had in my own dressing room get some black sneakers that I had taken to the beach the day before and I could wear those sneakers in in steamy no they weren't like they were white and they quickly had to dye them black and the dye was still on my feet running when I was doing the number because there was no time the adrenaline must have really started oh I hear hey there today and I and I I get a little nauseous you know this the people in this show had no time to do anything presentational but they they got a a long piece of paper from a stage managers role and each of them signed the paper with their name and a little wish you well greeting I kept that and I sent it to my mother and when my mother died a few years ago I was going through her things and I found it it was the first time you'd seen it yeah I didn't know what to do a whole series of hooker roles and became the inspiration for a well you skipped about ten years I have to convince everything that in the 18 minutes but no you did you did other Broadway shows I know after pajama game I went to tell her no I chose after that I went to Hollywood and began to work with Martin and Lewis I witnessed the breakup it was the last of their pictures together no that one it was it was tense it was very tense and that's when I discovered the Dean was the funny one Jerry was the scientific one very very funny and I remember as a kid he was my favorite he and Dean and they were my favorites they were I goats Timmy of timing and then I did well the first time I did was for Hitchcock called the trouble with Harry where I dug up and buried a body every half an hour the black comedy and and then I did around the world in 80 days playing a Hindu princess candy I might add of course I don't know why Mike Todd thought I could he went to some research library and discovered that what he thought the highest caste Hindus had fair hair and red freckles that was his justification for casting me in the part but he also wanted he knew he was making a kind of a classic campy comedy that was right then we can skip and say you did the know then I did then I did Matchmaker then I did with Shirley booth that that's when I fell in love with Dolly Levi now I'm ready to play her I did a thing with called career with tawny frenzy Oh send Dean Martin I did many pictures I did a picture with Glen Ford called sheep man where he christened my hat under his horse I know I can't even remember all and then Frank saw me on the television show because I was doing quite a bit of singing and dancing on television then and Sinatra saw me and thought I want that girl to play with me in that some came running and that was my first of those swimming rules but that was seven or eight pictures later all right so then we get we get past the movies you did the seven or eight movies but there came a time when you were cast as a hooker and it mean one led to another led to another a lot of what you mean yeah I don't know if some came running really worked and you know how Hollywood is but at least it gave you a great basis to build a piece near a nightclub act and and Michael your road man who tells me that that is not it's not called poker medley anymore you have the another name for it but the first time you did in Atlantic City people were hysterical they loved it and and I could tell that you liked it too Oh hookers are the best parts to play whether the feminist movement like that or not they just are where's now I won't play up to old this kind of hooker would never work I could play the madam but I only play the madam if she's Secretary of State at the same time okay a concession to the women's movement right a high-class know growing wise about being economic with yourself [Music] but it's good to be the last time we spoke about we're talking about your acting career and you were very blunt about it you said that and I had mentioned that some women complain that as they have gotten older they can't play the aunjanue roles and there aren't any roles any good waltz them to play and you said that never really bothered you because you never felt you were the aunjanue tied no I wasn't sexy type I had less to lose girls did when I got older and besides you know really my inclination was to play a play older all the time I always wanted those juicy character parts frankly when you look at it from the time I've been in my early 20s I was playing character parts we've always considered you somewhere of a character I think that the leading lady know leading lady character actress you know how Marla I was never really a leading man he was a character actor but he's so dominated and I don't know too eccentric perhaps to it definitive to play a regular ingenue leading lady although I've done it frankly I can't even remember them but I love the mixture of the comedy in the drama I've loved the the definition of the character you've played so many wonderful roles just in the last 10 12 years between terms of endearment and Steel Magnolias and guarding tests most recently and now I hear there's going to be a sequel the terms second Oscar are you I don't know about that but I it's just a fantastic script Bobby Harlan who wrote Steel Magnolias and sister act and so dish wrote it mm-hmm really captured Aurora well it's from Larry McMurtry segment novel that was the second sequel to terms it's called evening star and it takes Aurora she's much older and she's been a disaster as a grandmother bringing up these children and they she out of circumstance gets involved with seeing a psychiatrist about 25 years younger than she in order to determine how she can do something that these grandchildren they just don't appreciate life they don't seem to have any fun and they are a nuisance in a handful then she said she clamps her eyes on the psychiatrist and he's extremely good-looking and she proceeds to have this affair with him thereby neutralizing all the therapies he the astronaut does show up at Jack Nicholson movie there and he's now married to some douchey blonde but very happy and loves his children and so he and Aurora talk about age and what their relationship meant to each other and they're not things like that she has her protagonist in that nice is the best friend Emma the daughter who is still careening around the place in competition with Aurora it's just a fabulous that sounds like you're living it already well I know that character so well why just because you played it or how much of you is really and I think every character in me or I wouldn't have been drawn to them you know there are some people who hear you talk about your beliefs your New Age beliefs and and they wonder you know which surely is in in which role no it's fine I'm in all of them and they're all in them you know basically we are each a universe within ourselves right all I do is go into myself and find the aspects of me that match character there is a great technique in Hollywood we've been using quite a while with past life regression by the way baby and we go into these kind of meditations and five other times and places experiences that feels as though they're true who knows what it feels as though they're true and it does contribute greatly to the scope and the range that you have as an actor you know one of the things I often admired about you is that comedians satirist occasionally will take a shot and you know though they'll make up a joke they'll poke fun at Charlie McClane because of some of the things you believe and you seem to sometimes be the first one left long oh yeah I mean you don't seem to take offense when they skewer you in doonesbury or something always scares everybody oh my goodness that's a badge of honor though of course it is I agree with that I hope some of those guys write the Shirley MacLaine jokes really sure because if you tell a metaphysical joke it's got to be based on something that intuitively the listener knows is real or not sometimes comedy writers are quite nut City and they get the logic of metaphysics off believe it or not there's a logic to it so if they don't tell a joke with the right structure it won't be a laugh I hate a Shirley MacLaine joke to be told and not gonna laugh when will you do terms of agility next spring sometime and Jack's gonna do it and you'll be there uh so it's gonna be reunion yeah sequel say this is the first time because um people would say well how can you do it any better than the first one but this is a different story 20 years later she's a little bit different the characters in her life are different the issues are different so yes I'm a little concerned but when something was as good as that was I think it's healthy we concerned it's so good that you were nominated for an Academy where you won an Academy Award is that gonna be in the back of your mind as your Oscar should never be in the back of your mind because you know by projecting into the future like that you can really mess up and limit the present no don't do that I mean do that before we wrap up let's go back to dancing back to the live theater which is what you love so much you really do I wouldn't be doing it at this stage I don't know you're gonna spend my life I need the audience it's like Al Pacino or Jessica or Glenn Close all these people will go back to the stage and do a play or Glenn doing some set etc time I have to go back and do my show I would like to do a Broadway show one day that has a wonderful drama and comedy and music to it that could be a movie but to do something I prefer to do my one-woman show because I can change it I could talk to the audience which I do I make jokes and go down and mess with them and I can change it I can intersperse new members or whatever I mean yet four years ago as you were rehearsing to go out on to her you had a problem with your tore a ligament yeah I took a mint and appreciate and a meniscus and they had to do - stop of surgery and the doctor said forget about dancing again and 50% chance that you'll walk very discouraged like 6-8 weeks later you said hello I was careful and I wore brace on my knee for a while and then I learned to choreograph my life and I would of running on a string slicked Street to catch cab mm-hmm no and airports are difficult because people surprise you and your turnaround and I can wrench it but you know the most predictable terrain I have in my life it's my stage because the guys are very careful to clean it off one little drop screw on a stage though can be devastating to me there goes half as a career but also it's very frightening to me and I truly am I guess healthily scared of what could happen to my right knee and I never wear my brace anymore and I'm and I'm very comfortable with it to do my exercises every day it's another reason I continue to do this live work it keeps me young and healthy and it is necessary that I that I do mind well you have to sleep auntie surely surely there must be a kid oh it's so wonderful to have a little bopping around kids in your life so wonderful how old's baby no it's two and a half almost three and the baby boy I've been is he's only about two months old Wow so I'm still very involved with Catherine I don't know what to do with the boy what do you do with them Tara frogs are well I have one who's 14 and I'll be honest with you I still don't know I do guy stuff my wife does the thing with our daughter and I find do the stuff with her son once in a while we switch oh yeah I don't you think your daughter should yeah she does and usually it's Oh mom doesn't do it that way so with that we've reached the end of our interview this is the feminine perspective on I really appreciate spending really thank wonderful continued success thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Curtain Call with David Spatz TV

Views: 3,365

Rating: 4.9285712 out of 5

Keywords: Shirley MacLaine, Atlantic City, terms of endearment, Guarding Tess, The Apartment, Past Lives

Id: AjFNagJ9-hA

Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)

Published: Mon May 11 2020