Authors: Shirley MacLaine
So often I’ve tried to describe what it feels like to command a live audience from the stage. There’s no feeling in the world that is more satisfying. And no feeling is more devastating than when it falls flat and bores the audience. Las Vegas was my best teacher when I was developing my one-woman show. It was simple. If I heard ice tinkling in glasses, I knew I was boring them.
Yes, we are all involved in the world where our ultimate
goal is to show truth. When a politician gives a magnificently moving speech, he is actually a consummate actor who had a consummate writer preparing his material, so squaring the circle of what moves and inspires humanity. It’s the elements of show business that make a winner in politics.
I have, in my humble opinion, become something of a connoisseur of reality in my life because I’ve been privileged to experience so many points of view through traveling and my relationships with such a wide range of people. I’m usually right about the authenticity of a person’s presentation of themselves. Show business is a cruel educator in that department. When I’ve worked with brilliant actors who seem so real when they act a part, I’ve come to realize that underneath they
are
real to themselves.
L
et’s face it, vanity is as old as the hills. Entire civilizations are known to us today only because of how long-dead people looked, dressed, paraded, and even adorned themselves for death. Our museums are full of the stuff of their vanity. But what does vanity mean really? Does it revolve around how others see us or how we see ourselves?
When I was a teenager I was embarrassed by my red hair and freckles. And I had a tiny birthmark under my left arm, which today I hardly notice. But as young people we feel embarrassed by being seen as different in any way. We are inculcated with advertising propaganda as to what is acceptable and pretty.
As I’ve grown older, of course, I’ve dealt with a new set of vanity issues. I don’t know if I would have been concerned in a different way if I hadn’t been in show business. I honestly never cared how I looked or how I dressed until I was about
fifty years old. I was a “character” in life and a character in films. My roles in films weren’t dependent on beauty. I thought I was pretty enough once those freckles left my face around the age of
20
.
As a dancer, I exercised when I worked in a musical, and I thought that was enough. I ate anything I wanted and didn’t put on weight. Of course,
weight
in those days was a healthy subject, not an unhealthy one.
I remember making
The Trouble with Harry
for Alfred Hitchcock. I had just come out of the chorus of
Pajama Game
on Broadway and was thin and broke. My diet as a chorus girl was Horn & Hardart’s Automat food. I could live on ten cents a meal. There were lemons and sugar at the tables and water at the fountain. I’d make lemonade. Peanut butter and raisin bread sandwiches were ten cents in the food windows. So I had my peanut butter–raisin bread sandwich and lemonade for two nickels. A good diet, too.
Working with Hitch meant eating with him. On location for
Harry,
my breakfast was pancakes, fried eggs, fruit, toast, and jam. My lunch was worse because the desserts were heaven, and dinner was something I had to learn how to eat with him: meat, potatoes, appetizers, seven-course meals and Grand Marnier soufflés or the like to top it off. I never realized that my weight was visibly changing on film—maybe ten pounds from one scene to another when the film was assembled! The president of Paramount called me and asked me what I thought I was doing. I said, “Eating what I couldn’t afford before.” He said, “Now you’ve got some money, you’re
not going to starve. Quit or we’ll have to shoot retakes.” That hadn’t occurred to me. Hitch obviously had a food problem. But with him, carrying extra weight
was
his image. I was a different story.
Because I had a high metabolism and moved around a lot, I had no real problem until I was about fifty. Then vanity became an issue. Until then, I hardly sat in the makeup chair. Frank Westmore (my makeup man) literally wrestled me to the floor on several occasions because his job was on the line if I didn’t look pretty. I hated the creamy texture of the makeup, and the itch of the mascara, and
above all
the time I thought I was wasting sitting in the chair. My hairstyle was the result of a stage manager in
Me and Juliet
dunking my head in the chorus basement sink. I had long red hair that swished around on stage and drew attention away from the star, Isabel Bigley (which, truth be told, wasn’t difficult). When he let me up for air, the stage manager chopped off my ponytail and pushed me back onstage. The bowl cut has been my style ever since. I was not very imaginative, and hairstyles took too much time. Besides, my pixie cut worked well when dancing Bob Fosse’s hat routines.
Soon after coming to Hollywood, I realized that wigs were the way to go, not only when playing parts on screen but also in life, because I never had to sit with curlers under the dryer. That saved time in the makeup chair too. The hairdresser did all the work when I wasn’t there. But when my middle fifties came around, I began to notice that I was getting a lot
of grandmother-part offers. I didn’t see myself that way at all. What was happening? I was, in my own mind, still young, bouncy, an invisible guerrilla traveler, a kid. Wrong. After some hard thought, I had my face lifted. Never do that in the middle of a love affair because it’s disconcerting to your partner. And forget about having sex during recovery time. That’s the best way to pop your stitches.
But I must say I loved how I looked afterward. In fact, I became quite enamored with my face and preferred to have dinner wherever there were mirrors. Which brings me to the next show business necessity in real life.
F
irst of all, you need to know where to sit. If it’s daytime, you sit
facing
the outside light. Natural light is very nice for the skin—as long as it’s not direct sunlight. If you’re really smart, you place your partner just to the side of where the light is hitting you. You’ll know you are in the right daytime lighting position when you can’t see his face. He is completely backlit. You won’t know how he is reacting to your daytime dialogue, but you
do
know you look as good as possible when the sun is out.
At night, choose a restaurant with candlelit tables. Even ask for another candle. Claim you can’t see the menu.
Never
sit where there is an overhead light. It makes you look like Grandma Moses. And
never
sit where you can feel a cross-light splash across your face. A two-year-old looks haggard in that condition. If you are a person who is stopped on the street for a “reality” interview, ask them what filter they have in the camera. Black full pro mist is the best, but everything else will
look slightly blurred, which is what you want for your face. Otherwise, just keep walking.
I have no solution for the paparazzi who jump out at you in highly inappropriate environments. Except perhaps murder. But then, even paparazzi can be reincarnated.
When you are doing a TV interview, remember to tell the camera people you want the camera high and the key light low. They will hate you for knowing what you’re doing, but insist, even if you turn into a diva. It’s easier for me nowadays because I’m so old they think I
must
be an expert. In fact, Marlene Dietrich taught me how to light myself when we made
80 Days
.
She was the master of lighting, as well as the master of costume fittings. I used to sit and watch her being fitted in everything from leather tuxedos to full-length sequined gowns. Her fittings lasted for six hours. She was literally the last one left standing. She would ponder deeply over exactly how close the sequins should be sewn together. She loved to design the sequins so the audience could just see through them, revealing the shape of her legs. She taught me a new use for
2
½ millimeter pearls. (They were to be put in the center of my bra so you would think they were my nipples.) She also showed me how to string a small, nearly invisible chain under my chin which was then attached to pincurls on either side of my face. This was the Dietrich face-lift. Of course I had a headache by lunch, but it was worth it. She ate only every other day, and not much even then. That’s how she kept her figure. Not something I could ever do.
She was having a love affair with Mike Todd on
80 Days
until I introduced him to Elizabeth Taylor. Marlene was good about it. She remembered that Mike had tossed out Evelyn Keyes for her anyway.
I loved to overhear the negotiations for diamonds and rubies between Mike and Elizabeth just to get her to go out to dinner. Elizabeth was no fool and Mike was no cheapskate. I sometimes wondered what a roll in the hay would cost. Elizabeth used to come to my one-room apartment in Malibu and tell me that Mike seduced her as a snake would seduce a mongoose. Every man I ever introduced her to fell in love with her. She saw to that. One of them purposely nearly ran his car off a Malibu cliff out of longing for her.
I had a darling boxer dog at the time, and whenever we came back to my place and the dog had pooped on the floor, she would clean it up, protesting that she wanted a simpler life. She was and is a very down-to-earth person—a woman I adore completely, a loyal and funny friend.
I learned a great lesson in lighting from her one night. Mike had recently died in that tragic plane crash, and Elizabeth had taken up with Eddie Fisher. The town and it seemed the entire country was upset with her for stealing Eddie from Debbie
and
for doing it so soon after Mike’s death. There was a party at her agent’s house. She asked me to come and sit with her at a small table, which happened to be situated next to a candle-lit patio. She was drinking champagne from a sparkling crystal glass. Very subtly, she positioned herself in
between me and the outside candles (they always work). She began to quietly talk about her love for Mike and why Eddie meant so much to her because of his relationship with Mike. Her eyes welled up with violet tears as she held her sparkling crystal glass close to her face. When the tears were about to fall, she subtly moved her champagne glass just under her eyes. I’ll never forget it. Her tears splashed like diamonds into the champagne as she talked about missing Mike so much. I’d never seen anything more beautiful or moving, and the entire party seemed to pause in wonder for a moment. It all worked because her words were true and because she used her extensive experience in front of the camera to accentuate her emotions. She is a great lady and the personification that All Life Is Show Business.
I have come to the point in my life that I would rather just play a great character than worry so much how I look while I’m doing it. I’m not completely over my vanity, but the part that I
am
over is a relief.
I
’ve had sinus infections all my life. Over the years, the doctors gave me every antibiotic they could think of. They would work for a while, but the infections always came back. Then, about five years ago, I got very sick. A drip from my nose caused spasmodic coughing fits so intense that it put me in the emergency room three times. None of my doctors could pinpoint what was wrong. So I took more antibiotics. Nothing worked.
Then one day I asked for a CT scan of my sinuses. The result was shocking: the entire right side of my face was full of pus. Long story short, I decided to have sinus surgery in L.A. The team got me prepared for surgery . . . at least that’s what I was told they were doing. The preparation consisted mostly of the anesthesiologist and nurses asking me about movies and Hollywood. They seemed disorganized to me.
One of the drugs they were pumping into my arm was supposed to dry up all my mucus and spit. I had a severe
coughing fit and I was unable speak. The surgeon thought I was sedated and other doctors came in and took tests. They pronounced me in good health. I was awake, but still couldn’t speak. The surgeon held a long, long tube up over his head like a circus performer about to do a trick. Then he proceeded to put the long tube into my nose and push it down and inside my face. It was excruciating. I tried to speak, but couldn’t. I had heard stories about people whom doctors thought were under anesthesia when they really weren’t. It was happening to me!
I grabbed the long tube and pulled it out of my nose and sat up. I somehow got off the table and managed to croak, “I’m out of here. Where are my shoes?”
I heard one of the anesthesiologists say that the drug I had been given produced a fight-or-flight response if the patient wasn’t out. Fight-or-flight described me perfectly, all right. Probably due to my status as a celebrity, the nurses found my clothes and shoes pronto. I still couldn’t speak very well. I became a one-person escape artist and no one stopped me. I don’t remember calling a cab, but one came and I went home.
I will never go to that hospital or see those doctors again.
A few weeks later, I had the sinus operation in Santa Fe as outpatient surgery. It went well. The doctors told me they had never seen such an infected backup of pus, the sickly stench of which permeated the surgery room. The rehab from the surgery was difficult, but I have been fine ever since.