Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1959 - May 1960)

A Little Bit Kooky continued from page 38 eat lunch either, and on a few occasions skips all three meals. When these periods of unthinking starvation — they are never forced — come to her, her appetite attains fierce momentum and in the end she falls on a meal of Marine proportions, devouring as if there were no tomorrow and chewing little enough as to alarm an expert on the functioning of the digestive tract. Shirley also gets fixes on certain foods and becomes impatient of variety. "I've seen her eat her weight in fruit at one sitting," a friend says. "Nothing but fruit." AS A healthy and amiable girl, Shirley MacLaine can be said to have very few dissident quirks of personality, but some of these have come about as a result of the overwhelming volume of publicity that lately has come her way. At the time of a recent interview, she had appeared twice on the cover of a national picture magazine and once as star of the cover feature of one given ostensibly to news. Another picture specialist would coverblurb her a week from then and a monthly publication was coming up with more of the same. The heroine of all this was more concerned than otherwise. "It's all pretty wonderful," she said, "but there's bound to be a saturation point. People are going to get good and fed up with looking at this face and reading about this me." She was called to the phone and excused herself. While she was away, a studio spokesman said to the other person, "She's putting her foot down on all this about how she and Steve are 6,000 miles apart much of the time." Miss MacLaine's husband is Steve Parker, who is not an actor but looks more like an actor than most actors; a handsome, moustached man whose production activities keep him in Japan a great deal. "She's afraid people will think she can't remember his last name. Which, of course, she can. Besides, Steve has been in the (Hollywood) vicinity lately because of the success of the Japanese show he brought to Las Vegas." The interviewer, who had as well a nodding social acquaintance with the Parkers, bore this in mind but asked when she came back: "How's Steve?" "Steve who?" She got the reaction she wanted — bewilderment — and then said, "Steve's fine." She is worried also about any further pictures of her truly adorable baby daughter, Stephanie, who has been building a public of her own via so much photography. Stephie, as most call her, not only is cute but . is, in her mother's opinion, becoming aware of it. This sounds precocious but Shirley MacLaine Parker does not wish to risk her only child's growing up a ham. When Shirley MacLaine says she is not 62 self-conscious, she speaks nothing less than the truth. A French philosopher of note once admonished his readers: "Never apologize, never explain." While Shirley may not carry self-containment quite this far, she still feels patently that she has nothing drastic to answer for, and it is an attitude that gives her superb outer aplomb. A close associate' has said of her, "If she lived in a cave and you visited her, she wouldn't say a word about how the place looked. Wouldn't even think of it. She hasn't that kind of insecurity. Inside she may be a little scared — not that I think so. But you'll never know it from her." She loves to swim but must do so either in early morning or at night; the sun mars her sensitive skin. Yet she is one of the few women not in the least disturbed by wearing on her legs neither stockings nor a tan. Naturally, she does not live in a cave. She lives in a pleasant home on the southern slope of the San Fernando Valley that probably would be called "ranch" — a California word for any architecture not definitely Tudor, Spanish or modern — and has a driveway so angled that it is almost impossible to get onto or out of without two tries. Before that, when Stephie was a babe in arms, she lived on the beach in Malibu and swore lovingly she would never live any place else, and later on a hillside which likewise she was never going to leave. Despite her disinclination to discuss the matter, it is thought by those closest to her that Shirley MacLaine does get lonesome and does channel her A DANCER, Hollywood decreed she become an actress. Now Shirley's one of the best. devotions, those not lavished on Step toward inanimate objects and possessiii She is emphatic and entirely truthful w I she says, "I don't give a hoot about ] I sessions!" but the energy of a need to 1 may seek outlets. The Shirley MacLaine that will be j| veiled in "Can-Can" is the Shirley V. I Laine who left New York for Hollywo I a trained and adept dancer. Pictures I creed promptly that she become an actr I and this she has done so well that mi authoritative opinion thinks she is perh the best young actress films ever h developed. But the notion of dancing ne left her. "Not the notion," she said a while a "But I lost track of the dancer somewh over South Dakota. She stepped out a left me there," "South Dakota?" "Yes. Flying out here from New Yo , When I got on the plane, I was a danc When I got off, I wasn't." SHIRLEY MacLaine loves travel 1 geography tends to confuse her. Soi Dakota is considerably north of even t most northernly routes used by air lir between Chicago and Los Angeles. H then, said a questioner, quibbling though he were from The National G< graphic Society, did she get there? "Oh, weather," said Miss MacL. "Y know how lon» it took? Fourteen hour; "Headwinds?" "Undoubtedly. They blew the danc right out of the plane. Until 'Can-Can She finished lunch and her mind made backward voyage. "I don't." she sai "want people to think I'm anything en ing in -nik. Because I'm not. Anyone whc something-nik is just because they , wo at it. If they're natural, that's somethii else. But I do what I want to, not to be character, and I don't think I am a chara ter," She put the exhausted gum back her mouth. "For instance, I like gum o — but not second-hand. There's a diffe ence, you know." Her audience acknowledged it. "You'i tired of the oddball bit. You go back work and I'll go back and think, ar something will come of it all." "Or you go back to work and I II § back and think. That's even better. They'] throwing me around today. This danc we're doing. There's one place I'm way u high. That I hate. I don't mind bein thrown around but I'm really scared ( high places." "Acrophobia," said her friend, who b mischance knew the proper word for fea of high places. "My!" said Shirley. "What's vertig mean then?" "When you get dizzy." "All right. I get vertigo when I hav what you said." Vertigo or acrophobia, either doesn make a body a-nik. Neither does leavin gum behind Frank Sinatra's ear. It's all u; to what you feel like. Or how, more to th point, Shirley MacLaine feels. ENi