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Shirley MacLaine on a life in pictures
At 90 years old, veteran actor and Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine was in a spicy mood. Looking through photographs from her long career, captured mostly in black and white, she remarked, “Where are the nude ones?”
Of one picture of her seated on the hood of a Cadillac on the Paramount lot, she said, “Here, I’m just trying to be coy, on purpose. Jesus. What a jerk!”
From “The Wall of Life”/Crown
And another: “Oh, there I wanted to see how my legs photographed.”
They photographed well! “Well, I was born with good legs,” she admitted.
MacLaine always had a seductive spark. She was a pixie-haired triple-threat – singer, dancer and actor. She could turn every well-known head in Hollywood, and then some, like Dean Martin, whom she called the funniest person she ever met. She says she had a crush on him, but it never developed romantically: “No! I sort of was afraid if I got that close, he would be less funny,” she said. “And I think the humor meant more to me.”
Her picture of that love-not-to-be, along with hundreds of others, from fellow Rat Packers to politicians, once adorned MacLaine’s home in Santa Fe. She called it her “Wall of Life.” “I just started filling an empty wall, and loved it,” she said.
She just finished organizing that wall of life into a captioned photographic memoir, called, “The Wall of Life.”
Crown Publishing
It starts where she did, growing up in Virginia, the daughter of two educators and the older sister of would-be actor and Oscar-winning director Warren Beatty. “He was a little baby pup, and I took care of him and watched out for him,” MacLaine said.
From “The Wall of Life”/Crown
While Warren waited until college to go into acting, Shirley changed her last name to her middle name, and danced her way to New York, even before graduating from high school.
She credits everything to two teachers who offered a bit of prophetic advice: “I remember the day they sat me down and told me I have too much expression in my dancing. I might want to think about acting.”
As the story goes, MacLaine was cast as the understudy in the original Broadway production of “The Pajama Game.” When the star, Carole Haney, injured her ankle, MacLaine was thrown on stage, with just five minutes’ notice. “I never had a rehearsal,” she said.
She nailed it, or at least Alfred Hitchcock thought she did. He cast her in his next film, “The Trouble with Harry.” It was her first movie.
She’d have lunch with Hitchcock almost every day: “I had these huge Hitchcockian meals!” she laughed. “Make-up 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 had an appetite for her talent, too, and maybe a bit more. As she remembers it, he greeted her at that famous gate on the Paramount lot on her very first day: “He walked out of his office, and then walked toward my car. I rolled down the window. He leaned in and put his tongue down my throat.”
He later gave her a sports car, but not an apology. “What a jerk,” MacLaine said.
She was newly married at the time, to the only man she 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 famously open marriage – MacLaine spent most of her time in New York and Hollywood, while Parker and their daughter lived mostly in Japan.
She was, she admits, an unconventional mom, and an unconventional wife.
Her past affairs (if you can call them that) were hardly secret. She’s been pretty open about almost all of them. Yet 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 they do think so.”
She was just as open about those she’d never been with, like Jack Nicholson. When she won her Oscar for her role opposite Nicholson in “Terms of Endearment,” he couldn’t keep a straight face when she thanked him: “I have wanted to work with the comic chemistry of Jack Nicholson since his chicken salad sandwich scene in ‘Easy Pieces,’ and to have him in bed was such middle-aged joy!”
She never stopped inhabiting memorable characters. She found roles that suited her and her age in films like as “Steel Magnolias” and “Postcards from the Edge.” She was in her late 70s when she joined the cast of TV’s “Downton Abbey,” and she was in her 80s when she appeared on “Only Murders in the Building.”
For someone who famously claims to have lived several past lives, photos of her current life sure make it look spectacular. No wonder she believes people have come back from the beyond to talk with her about it, like Cecil B. DeMille, who died almost 40 years before she received the lifetime achievement award named after him: “I’m going to take this award home, and of course I will be speaking directly to Mr. DeMille later,” she said.
From “The Wall of Life”/Crown
MacLaine still lives in Santa Fe. She says she fits here: “I love the old antique-y, it’s-still-here feeling. It reminds me of myself!”
She’s well aware that time is running out to satisfy all her curiosities, but she has been very open about not being afraid of dying: “Oh, no. I’m kind of interested in going there,” she said. “I’m looking forward to being part of the heaven experience. I really am.”
But for now at least, Shirley MacLaine isn’t going anywhere.
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Story produced by Reid Orvedahl. Editor: Mike Levine.
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Man arrested at checkpoint near Trump rally in Coachella Valley for allegedly possessing illegal firearms
Deputies assigned to former President Donald Trump’s rally in the Coachella Valley arrested a Las Vegas man Saturday at a checkpoint for allegedly having a loaded firearm, a shotgun, and a high-capacity magazine.
The suspect, identified by deputies as 49-year-old Vem Miller, was pulled over in a black SUV at the intersection of Avenue 52 and Celebration Drive.
Deputies said in a news release that the suspect was “illegally in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine.”
(credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
Miller was taken into custody without incident, according to deputies. Following the arrest, he was booked at the John J. Benoit Detention Center on charges of possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine.
Authorities confirmed that this incident did not compromise Trump’s safety or the safety of the rally attendees.
The investigation remains ongoing, and anyone with additional information is urged to contact Deputy Coronado at the Palm Desert Sheriff’s Station at (760) 836–1600.
Saturday’s incident follows two assassination attempts on Trump in the past three months. In July, a gunman opened fire during Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, injuring Trump when a bullet grazed his ear and killing a rallygoer. Secret Service snipers shot and killed the gunman. And earlier this month, the Secret Service arrested a man with an AK-47-style weapon at Trump’s Florida golf course who was 300-500 yards from the former president. The man, Ryan Wesley Routh, has been charged with attempted assassination of a political figure in addition to firearms charges.
The next full moon is due to appear this week in night skies all over the world. When it emerges, the phenomenon will hold a couple of notable titles.
First, it’s the Hunter’s Moon, a centuries-old name for the full moon immediately following the autumnal equinox and the September Harvest Moon that rises with it, which signals an acceleration in the hunting season. Some Native American tribes referred to the celestial event by different monikers — like the Blood Moon, Travel Moon or Dying Grass Moon, according to the Maine Farmer’s Almanac — but each was used to mark a similar milestone shift in the year.
The upcoming full moon is also a supermoon, where the moon appears brighter and larger to skywatchers on Earth because of its proximity to the planet, and this one is slated to be the most dazzling of the year so far.
Why does the moon appear brighter during a supermoon?
Like Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the moon’s around Earth is elliptical, meaning oval-shaped. This means the space rock is positioned at various distances from the planet depending on the time of the month and where it’s located along that orbital path. The distances range from about 226,000 miles and 251,000 miles, according to NASA.
George Walker IV / AP
When the moon is hovering around one of those closer distances during a full moon, it becomes a supermoon.
Supermoons only happen three or four times a year, since the moon’s closeness to Earth rarely coincides with monthly full moons. They aren’t identical, either. Astronomers generally consider a full moon to be “super” if the moon’s position in orbit is at least 90% of the distance from its farthest point to Earth in the ellipses to its closest. The absolute closest point is called perigee.
When does the next full moon take place?
The Hunter’s Moon this week will be the third of four consecutive supermoons, NASA said. It falls on Thursday, Oct. 17, and comes on the heels of the moon reaching perigee one day earlier. Because of that, the supermoon is expected to be the biggest and brightest of its kind in 2024, albeit, by a very small margin.
The moon will reach its nearest point to Earth at around 9 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday evening, with a full moon due to materialize less than 12 hours later, at around 7:30 a.m. in the same time zone. It will occur late Wednesday night for places west of the International Date Line and early Friday morning for places from New Zealand eastward.
People should be able to see the moon appearing full for three or so days around that time, from Tuesday night until Friday morning. Astronomers say the supermoon will be most striking right after sunset and advise looking just above the horizon for the best chances at visibility.
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Rep. Maxwell Frost says Congress should return “as soon as possible” to replenish disaster relief funds
Rep. Maxwell Frost, Democrat of Florida, said Sunday that Congress should return “as soon as possible” to replenish disaster relief funds and not wait until Nov. 12 when Congress is scheduled to reconvene.
“Why wait until Nov. 12? We don’t know what’s going to be happening in terms of natural disasters or storms,” Frost said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “I think it’s important that an agency like FEMA have even — not just what they need, but even more than what they need to ensure that they have the resources necessary, of course, to help with the current operation.”
In late September, Congress passed a short-term spending bill that authorized FEMA to utilize the agency’s fiscal year 2025 resources sooner, drawing $20 billion from its disaster relief fund. However, the stopgap spending bill did not include billions of additional dollars that the White House Office of Management and Budget had requested for already existing recovery efforts.
Hurricane Helene made landfall on Sept. 26 in Florida’s Big Bend region before causing devastating floods in Tennessee and North Carolina. Less than two weeks later, powerful Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s Siesta Key.
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FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said Wednesday that the agency is currently able to “support all of the needs of everyone that was impacted by Helene and Milton,” but that the agency expects to need additional funds in the future.
President Biden on Thursday called on lawmakers to “move as rapidly as they can” on emergency funding, particularly for Small Business Administration disaster money, which is running precariously low. However, the president said he hasn’t spoken with House Speaker Mike Johnson or asked him to bring Congress sooner. Mr. Biden on Sunday announced $600 million in aid for areas affected by Hurricanes Milton and Helene while he was touring the damaged St. Petersburg region in Florida.
So far, congressional leaders have not called for lawmakers to return to Washington before Nov. 12 to address additional disaster funding.
A group of bipartisan senators signed a letter urging Senate leaders to bring lawmakers back into session, saying, “this may even require Congress to come back in October to ensure we have enough time to enact legislation before the end of this calendar year.” House lawmakers also sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson requesting that the House reconvene to allocate further disaster relief aid.
Johnson said Sunday on “Face the Nation” that FEMA has the necessary funding to last until Congress’ return to Washington in November.
“It can wait… because remember, Congress appropriated $20 billion additional to FEMA so that they would have the necessary resources to address immediate needs,” Johnson said. “It would be premature to call everyone back now, because these storms are so large in their scope and magnitude, it’s going to take a little bit of time to make those calculations.”
Frost argued Sunday that Congress should proactively provide more disaster funding and not wait until after more damage is caused by this year’s disastrous hurricane season.
“The thing we have to understand is, yes, FEMA has the resources necessary to deal with the current situation, but like was mentioned in the previous segment, NOAA is predicting, and we’ve seen, that this is one of the worst hurricane seasons we’ve seen.” Frost said. “We’re not done with this hurricane season, it doesn’t end, really, till the end of November… why leave it up to chance when we can ensure that FEMA has the resources it needs?”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also joined “Face the Nation” on Sunday, pressuring Congress to react accordingly to the unprecedented hurricane season.
“We need Congress to act swiftly to fund FEMA and specifically its Disaster Relief Fund, because hurricane season is not over, and also seasons are less and less important now, given the effects of climate change and the increasing gravity and frequency of extreme weather events.”
Man arrested at checkpoint near Trump rally in Coachella Valley for allegedly possessing illegal firearms
The Hunter’s Moon this week will be a supermoon — the brightest in 2024
Rep. Maxwell Frost says Congress should return “as soon as possible” to replenish disaster relief funds
Man arrested at checkpoint near Trump rally in Coachella Valley for allegedly possessing illegal firearms
The Hunter’s Moon this week will be a supermoon — the brightest in 2024