Shirley MacLaine

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty three, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

On our desert island this week is the actress, entertainer, writer and traveller Shirley MacLean.

Presenter0:36

Could you endure loneliness and isolation?

Shirley MacLaine0:38

Oh, what I would not be able to endure is being without.

Shirley MacLaine0:42

Isolation.

Shirley MacLaine0:43

Really need it.

Presenter0:44

You play discs a lot.

Presenter0:47

You have this problem of taking just eight that may have to last for a long, long time. What did you have in mind when you started to choose?

Shirley MacLaine0:54

What I could fit into an hour.

Shirley MacLaine0:57

About choosing,'cause I have a hard time making up my mind.

Presenter1:00

So this is today's choice, but.

Shirley MacLaine1:02

Yes, it definitely if you would ask me next Thursday I think it would be different.

Presenter1:06

What's the first one we're having today?

Shirley MacLaine1:08

The first one is Fly Me to the Moon, Nat King Cole.

Presenter1:10

Why do you choose that?

Shirley MacLaine1:12

Well, it's a love song that

Shirley MacLaine1:14

has to do with sort of the um

Shirley MacLaine1:18

Conglomeration of thinking of fantasy and

Shirley MacLaine1:23

Reality.

Shirley MacLaine1:25

In other words, when you're really in love, you are.

Shirley MacLaine1:28

Flung to the stars.

Presenter1:30

Fly me to the moon

Presenter1:34

And let me play among the stars Let me see what spring is like

Presenter1:42

On Jupiter and Mars In other words, hold my hand

Presenter1:55

In other words

Presenter1:58

Darling, kiss me.

Presenter2:02

Fly Me to the Moon by Nat King Cole with the George Shearing Quintet.

Presenter2:06

Whereabouts in the United States are you from, Sherry?

Shirley MacLaine2:09

I am from Richmond, Virginia, the state of five presidents, Mason Dixon line, sort of uh culturally adept and uh socio-politically motivated.

Presenter2:18

Yes.

Shirley MacLaine2:19

Middle class.

Presenter2:20

MacLean is your middle name, isn't it?

Shirley MacLaine2:22

It's my mother's maiden name and my middle name, yes. Scotch-Irish.

Presenter2:26

Which side is which?

Shirley MacLaine2:27

Both. Little of each sprinkled in there. Mom was Canadian.

Presenter2:31

Now you've reported that your home life was quiet and uneventful. How did you seek your escape from that as a child?

Shirley MacLaine2:40

Uh, mostly through dancing.

Shirley MacLaine2:42

I loved uh music.

Shirley MacLaine2:44

I loved getting on the bus and looking at people.

Shirley MacLaine2:47

It was a form of physical expression that I could use my body with. I felt very adept at doing it from a very, very early age. I mean, I can remember moving with a sense of uh consciousness about my movement when I was one year old.

Presenter2:59

Did there seem any possibility that this would be your profession, your vocation?

Shirley MacLaine3:05

My mother told me that when I was uh about two.

Shirley MacLaine3:09

That I had uh begun to talk about. All I wanted to be was a little dancing girl.

Presenter3:14

You had a a very fierce dedication. There was one time when you danced the fairy godmother in Cinderella with a broken ankle.

Shirley MacLaine3:21

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:22

In agony

Shirley MacLaine3:23

Oh, no, actually I didn't feel it uh until after. But I was warming up before the performance and I did a grandget across the stage and I landed and my right ankle buckled under me and the bone cracked and it went right through my toe shoe ribbon.

Presenter3:35

Wow.

Shirley MacLaine3:36

Yeah, and I looked down and thought, Well, I better get up again and keep going. It's not happening.

Shirley MacLaine3:41

And I really applied my first

Shirley MacLaine3:44

application of mind over matter. I was about twelve. How long were you laid up? Oh, a few months. But I was back walking and dancing again soon after that. I didn't uh I let it mend, but then I didn't think it was right to let it rust.

Presenter3:59

Right. Well, you had gone as far as you could in Virginia. What was the next step?

Shirley MacLaine4:03

I went to uh New York when I was about sixteen and got into my first Broadway show by telling them I was twenty one. Had you any contacts in New York? No. Just knew where the airport was.

Presenter4:14

So it's up and down agency stairs until you you find something.

Shirley MacLaine4:18

Oh, I couldn't even get out of the agent's elevators in the beginning.

Shirley MacLaine4:21

and much less a producer's elevator.

Presenter4:24

And you had to find money for class every day and room rent.

Shirley MacLaine4:28

Yes, my mom and dad financed that for me. I really didn't like taking it because I wanted to be on my own from the moment I left home, but uh I've been forever grateful for that.

Presenter4:38

Your very first job was in a sales presentation, wasn't it?

Shirley MacLaine4:42

Her very first job was in the subway circuit of Oklahoma.

Shirley MacLaine4:46

famous Broadway musical and we used to go around uh theaters in the uh

Presenter4:47

Commuters

Speaker 14:48

Yeah.

Shirley MacLaine4:50

outlying districts of Manhattan, and it was called a subway circuit I was sixteen.

Shirley MacLaine4:55

The one you're referring to is an industrial show that I did uh after I graduated from high school and I danced around Servile refrigerators for about a year.

Shirley MacLaine5:04

My job was to do pirouettes and foites until the ice was cold.

Shirley MacLaine5:11

And one day, one day I

Shirley MacLaine5:14

I got so upset with this job.

Shirley MacLaine5:16

That I blacked out my two front teeth.

Presenter5:21

Continuing to do your threat is.

Shirley MacLaine5:21

Continuing to do your own.

Presenter5:23

Uh

Shirley MacLaine5:23

Sold more refrigerators that week than anything on the whole circuit.

Presenter5:27

Yeah.

Presenter5:28

But they song you are.

Shirley MacLaine5:29

Oh yeah, they fired me.

Presenter5:31

Let's have your second record. What's that to be?

Shirley MacLaine5:33

That would be uh Vladimir Ashkenazi's uh Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, number one. Why'd you choose it?

Shirley MacLaine5:42

Of the Russian soul.

Shirley MacLaine5:44

Played by a five-foot-three Russian who's very handsome with lots of hair, Roy.

Speaker 35:48

Right, thank you.

Presenter6:46

Vladimir Ashkenazi, playing an excerpt from the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor,

Presenter6:53

With the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lorin Marcel.

Presenter6:58

So you were on the subway circuit in Oklahoma and you did your sales presentation. What was your first Broadway show?

Shirley MacLaine7:05

That was my first Broadway show, but then after that I did, um

Shirley MacLaine7:10

There's a famous summer theater in the round. I don't know if it still exists, but it was called St. John Terrell's Music Circus, and I did about seven Broadway shows.

Shirley MacLaine7:19

A lot of on the job training. At which time I did Kiss Me Kate, Carousel, Guys and Dolls, um, all the wonderful classical American musicals.

Presenter7:28

Yes. And what was your first appearance on Broadway itself?

Shirley MacLaine7:32

And the first full-fledged Broadway show was, um

Shirley MacLaine7:36

Rogers and Hammerstein's Me and Juliet.

Presenter7:38

Ed never played in London.

Shirley MacLaine7:39

No, it shouldn't have played in Broadway either. It wasn't that good.

Presenter7:42

You were in the chorus.

Shirley MacLaine7:42

I was in the chorus and uh

Shirley MacLaine7:45

That was when I first met uh my beloved Oscar Hammerstein. Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful man he was, like a huge bear, so kind and so compassionate.

Presenter7:55

And then the pajama game. Now that's where you got your big chance. You were under study to Carol Haney.

Shirley MacLaine8:01

Mhm. But not until the night, uh, before we opened in New York.

Shirley MacLaine8:05

Because she was a gipsy like I, she would have gone on with a broken neck, seemingly, but she broke her ankle.

Shirley MacLaine8:11

You got

Presenter8:11

You'd be an on with a broken ankle.

Shirley MacLaine8:13

Mhm. That's how I knew she would. So I thought it would be impossible for me ever to go on. And the very night

Shirley MacLaine8:20

Well, sh actually she broke her ankle on a matinee performance day, and uh I had come home from the theater that day as a member of the chorus, very depressed.

Shirley MacLaine8:28

That I would be in a another hit musical in the chorus, and I didn't know what to do at them. In the meantime, they had asked me to replace.

Shirley MacLaine8:36

the under study for Gwen Verdon in Cancan, and I had the notice my notice in my pocket.

Shirley MacLaine8:42

To turn in to the producers of Pajama Game.

Shirley MacLaine8:45

who were How Prince, Bobby Griffith,

Shirley MacLaine8:47

Bob Fossey, etcetera. Jerry Robbins.

Shirley MacLaine8:50

I was on my way to the theatre. The subway got stuck in Times Square. I was late for even my part.

Shirley MacLaine8:57

In the chorus, A Half an Hour.

Shirley MacLaine8:59

They finally got the subway door open and I went screaming and running down Forty fourth Street to the stage door, and there were Fossey and Hal Prince and the rest of them lined up against the stage door, saying, Where in the hell have you been? and I said

Shirley MacLaine9:13

Well, the subway got stuck, but really it's not like the Third World War is gonna happen because I'm not here and they said, Well, Carol Haney is out and you're on for her and I had never had a rehearsal. No understudy rehearsals at all. You were thrown s

Presenter9:25

Straight on.

Shirley MacLaine9:26

But I had studied it from the wings.

Shirley MacLaine9:29

and learned steam heat sort of by myself, doing the trick with the hat by myself. But I had never heard my own voice on the stage before because I was basically just a dancer expressing myself through the physical.

Shirley MacLaine9:43

Uh movement, but never with my voice, and that's the thing that scared me the most, how it would sound, both singing and speaking.

Shirley MacLaine9:52

You know, the audience didn't frighten me the first night. It was the cast lined up in the wings wondering if they would take me away in a cart or something.

Shirley MacLaine10:01

I I have always been confident that I could razzle dazzle the people, but I knew that they knew better the cast in the show. But they were so supportive and

Shirley MacLaine10:10

and nourishing to me. And then when the show was over I walked on for you see, the people who did Steam Heat together, of which the little character I was playing was one, three of us would come on and take a bow.

Speaker 110:20

Three of

Shirley MacLaine10:22

And I came on with the other two dancers and they separated away from me, as did the rest of the cast, and left me alone on the stage to take the bows from the audience. I was eighteen years old and I wasn't used to being a soloist. I wasn't used to that kind of reception or to be singled out as somebody talented. I was used to being a soldier, which is what a chorus person is. I got very embarrassed and

Speaker 110:46

Right.

Shirley MacLaine10:48

I didn't know what to do. And I said, come back, come back. Don't leave me alone out here. I thought, hmm, maybe I'm not ready to be a star.

Presenter10:55

Well, you were, because you made an enormous success. And almost immediately you signed a a five year Hollywood contract to a mister Harold Wallace.

Shirley MacLaine11:03

Yeah.

Presenter11:04

But he didn't give you your first film. What was that?

Shirley MacLaine11:07

Th my first film was with Alfred Hitchcock. I went through the summer. Carol came back to the show and I went back into the chorus for the summer and she was out again in September with laryngitis. She couldn't talk. I went on again.

Shirley MacLaine11:20

And Hitchcock was in the audience, and he saw me

Shirley MacLaine11:24

and offered me a film.

Shirley MacLaine11:26

I had already been under contract to Wallace. They made an arrangement, and I went to work in Hollywood.

Presenter11:31

How did you get on with Hitchcock?

Shirley MacLaine11:32

Oh, I adored him. I adored him. He had a very uh

Shirley MacLaine11:36

sort of a laconic cockney sense of humour.

Shirley MacLaine11:39

And I didn't really understand it.

Presenter11:43

Haha.

Presenter11:44

The the movie, of course, was The Trouble with Harriet.

Shirley MacLaine11:46

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 111:46

Uh

Presenter11:47

You have by now married. Do you remember how much you and your husband had between you when you arrived in Hollywood?

Shirley MacLaine11:53

About thirty-five cents, literally.

Shirley MacLaine11:56

Had to borrow money to uh rent a broken down car.

Shirley MacLaine12:00

And then I made some money on the next picture. Yeah. And soon after that he went to Japan.

Presenter12:03

Yeah.

Presenter12:05

Now you made the trouble with Harry, artists and models.

Presenter12:08

Around the world in 80 days. None of them really money spillers. In other words, your career didn't take off with a wham right at the beginning.

Shirley MacLaine12:16

No. It was a slow, gradual process. Well, eighty days was a big hit, though. But it wasn't'cause I was in it, for sure. Yes. I wondered if I'd ever work again after that performance. Me as a Hindoo princess is a little bit much.

Presenter12:21

I wonder if it's a very good question.

Presenter12:28

Which movie was the turning point?

Shirley MacLaine12:32

Some came running.

Presenter12:33

That was the one in which you became the only female member of the celebrated clan that was

Shirley MacLaine12:33

That one

Presenter12:40

Later to include Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Dean Martin, and all the rest of the boys.

Shirley MacLaine12:44

And all the rest of the boy.

Shirley MacLaine12:46

But I had already made a film with Dean.

Shirley MacLaine12:48

I had made artists and models with Dean and Jerry.

Presenter12:50

Yes, yes.

Shirley MacLaine12:51

which we were reminding each other of.

Shirley MacLaine12:53

A few uh months ago because we just did another film together. We worked together thirty years ago.

Shirley MacLaine13:01

Oh Roy

Speaker 313:01

Uh When you were a small child.

Presenter13:01

When you were a small child.

Speaker 313:03

Yeah.

Speaker 313:05

When you were already eighty.

Presenter13:07

Ah, charming. Thank you.

Speaker 313:08

Yeah.

Presenter13:10

Well, you see Mr. McLean out of the studio, please.

Presenter13:15

Well, The Log Jam Broken and you made some really good movies. I mean, two for The Seesaw, The Apartment, Children's Are. Which others do you like to remember?

Shirley MacLaine13:25

Those Irma, ladouse.

Presenter13:27

Yeah.

Shirley MacLaine13:29

Uh god, I have to have a list of my movies'cause it seems like Another Life.

Presenter13:32

Well, never mind, we got four good ones.

Shirley MacLaine13:34

That's what we're doing.

Presenter13:35

Let's move on to another record, and it'll be your third record. Watch that to be.

Shirley MacLaine13:39

This would be Blowin' in the Wind by Peter, Paul and Mary.

Shirley MacLaine13:43

And I like it because of the social consciousness it has underneath the song, that there is something in the wind of change and how much longer

Shirley MacLaine13:51

Will we have to go on destroying ourselves, but that the winds of change are blowing?

Presenter13:56

How many times must the

Speaker 313:58

Cannon gulls fly before their forever band

Speaker 314:08

The answer my

Presenter14:09

Friend

Presenter14:11

Is blowing in the wind The answer is blowing in the wind

Presenter14:20

Peter, Paul and Mary blowing in the wind.

Presenter14:23

You were making all these successful pictures, Shirley, for various producers, but because of your contract with mister Hal Wallace, he was getting most of the money.

Shirley MacLaine14:31

He's getting all of the money if you really want my version of it.

Presenter14:35

That had to be sorted out.

Shirley MacLaine14:36

Yeah, let me tell you what really it was, and this would even days of inflation horrify you. He was selling me out to other studios under this contract for

Shirley MacLaine14:46

Oh, I think at one point he could get seven hundred and fifty thousand for me, and I got six thousand.

Shirley MacLaine14:52

I was getting less than the gopher on the set who went for coffee.

Shirley MacLaine14:57

So you know what I used to do?

Shirley MacLaine15:00

Whenever there was an early call, which I hate, you know, I don't stop coughing until twelve noon and and we have to show up as women do because they have makeup and hair to do.

Shirley MacLaine15:09

I would come and I would know the shot that was planned for the early morning, and I would only make up that side of my face that was in the camera I used to piss him off so badly.

Speaker 115:16

Uh

Speaker 315:16

Ha ha.

Presenter15:16

I have a

Speaker 315:16

Right.

Presenter15:16

Uh

Speaker 315:16

Uh

Shirley MacLaine15:19

He would come down and fume and fume and fume.

Shirley MacLaine15:24

I would say, Give me the other seven hundred thousand, I'll make up the other side of my face.

Presenter15:29

You did eventually sort it, it out.

Shirley MacLaine15:31

Yeah, I sued him.

Presenter15:33

Uh you didn't like to be fooled around with, is the story that you

Presenter15:37

Daird publicly beat up one of Hollywood's top show business columnists when he was writing some nasty stuff.

Shirley MacLaine15:43

I didn't beat him up, I just slugged him.

Presenter15:46

Well, a fine distinction.

Shirley MacLaine15:48

But I called my attorney first and asked what constituted assault and battery,'cause I didn't want to go to court over that. And he told me, Well, if you slug somebody with the fist closed, that's assault and battery, but if you really let'em have it with an open fist

Shirley MacLaine16:02

You're just a woman who's very upset. That's what I did.

Presenter16:05

So he couldn't do a thing.

Shirley MacLaine16:06

Oh he was stunned.

Shirley MacLaine16:09

He was stunned.

Shirley MacLaine16:11

I remember I got uh a call from Hedda Hopper, who was alive in those days, very much alive, and she called me and she said, Shirley, I'm most, most, most upset with you I said, Oh, really? Why? She said, Why didn't you kill the son of a bitch?

Presenter16:27

You took great care, I'm sure you still do, in in researching the characters you play. When you played Ilma in Ilma La Deuce, you you spent time in Paris researching the the professional life of Tarts. Did to really get the right feel of it?

Shirley MacLaine16:42

Mm.

Shirley MacLaine16:43

I enjoyed the research so much I nearly gave up the acting.

Presenter16:47

What was the name of your technical advisor?

Shirley MacLaine16:50

Oh, there were many.

Shirley MacLaine16:52

Lots of girls.

Shirley MacLaine16:53

They were very sweet, very um

Shirley MacLaine16:57

very interesting confused women and I became uh rather involved with uh why they thought they had to become prostitutes. And uh it had to do with lots of psychological damage done early in their lives.

Speaker 316:59

I mean

Presenter17:10

Mm-hmm.

Shirley MacLaine17:10

And that's a long story though, a really long story.

Presenter17:12

Yeah, surely. But they knew what you were doing, what what your motives were uh

Shirley MacLaine17:16

Oh, okay.

Presenter17:17

They cooperated.

Shirley MacLaine17:18

Oh yes, because I wanted to portray it at least emotionally, as honestly as I could. We couldn't put what really goes on on the screen, of course, but the stuff that Billy used, I mean, the credit card jokes and uh some of the fantasies that some men liked, uh there were some cabinet ministers who would visit the women and leave the motors and their cars running because they didn't have time, you know, they had some emergency session to to return to them and lots of stuff like that. And so I told Billy all that and he put it in the movie.

Presenter17:47

Uh

Presenter17:48

Let's have record number four. What have we got next?

Shirley MacLaine17:51

This is Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance, and it's the second part called Variations, which I absolutely adore.

Presenter17:59

You've seen the London production.

Shirley MacLaine18:01

Right here.

Shirley MacLaine18:02

And one day I would like to do something to variations. It's really remarkable.

Presenter18:37

An excerpt from variations from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance: The Orchestra conducted by Harry Rabinovich.

Presenter18:46

As a Hollywood star, Shirley, you were as big as they come.

Presenter18:49

But the Hollywood you knew was on the skid.

Shirley MacLaine18:53

Well, you're talking about the years when the Star system went out and the Hollywood contracts were more or less disbanded.

Presenter18:57

And the

Presenter19:00

Things were beginning to collapse.

Shirley MacLaine19:01

Yeah, it became the age of the independent producer and, um

Shirley MacLaine19:06

Stars were more or less on their own. I was one of the last who had the advantage of being nurtured and uh.

Shirley MacLaine19:13

Alternately exploited by the star system.

Shirley MacLaine19:17

As a matter of fact, I think the lawsuit that I brought against Hal Wallace was

Shirley MacLaine19:21

the beginning of the fall of it. Because you see, mine was

Shirley MacLaine19:25

A five-year contract, and under the California Statute of Limitations, it can't go any longer than five, but he stretched it to seven.

Shirley MacLaine19:32

When I had my baby, he extended it. Every time he loaned me out for a picture, he s extended it, so I sued him under that California statute of limitations.

Presenter19:40

And you won.

Shirley MacLaine19:41

Yeah.

Presenter19:42

You moved into a big international television setup, but that was a mistake.

Shirley MacLaine19:47

Colossal. Hmm.

Shirley MacLaine19:49

I didn't like the creative people working on it. I didn't like the scripts. I knew it would be a disaster. I called my agent before we began and said this is never going to work. The stories aren't good. It's not real.

Shirley MacLaine20:01

I really think we should postpone it for a year until we get it into some sort of shape.

Shirley MacLaine20:07

or else forget about it. But I was told I'd be sued for something like eighteen million dollars because the airtime had been bought and the sponsors had been committed, etcetera, so I had to go through with it.

Presenter20:16

So the next step was your one-woman statue.

Shirley MacLaine20:19

Well, I went through about three or four years of political involvement.

Presenter20:23

Yes.

Shirley MacLaine20:24

And that was very important to me. I worked for George McGovern, anything to keep Nixon from being President.

Shirley MacLaine20:30

Uh because of what he would do to the Supreme Court and how he would uh

Shirley MacLaine20:34

Well, totalitarianize the American government, and that's indeed what happened, and the Americans threw him out.

Shirley MacLaine20:41

But I worked for two years straight and um

Shirley MacLaine20:44

sort of nod myself out of the business. Whenever they would call me to invite me to make a film, I would say, No, I'm busy with politics and I think people thought that I didn't want to work any more. I began to write around that period. My first book, Don't Fall Off the Mountain, and then

Presenter20:58

Views.

Shirley MacLaine21:00

Then my second book when I was invited to go to China with the

Presenter21:03

You've always had this travel bug right from the beginning.

Shirley MacLaine21:06

Mm-hmm.

Presenter21:07

You've lived with the Maasai you

Presenter21:10

Baynam

Presenter21:11

Remote areas of the Himalayas, you've explored India.

Presenter21:16

And Japan literally has been a second home to you.

Speaker 321:18

Mm-hmm.

Presenter21:18

That was when you were married.

Speaker 321:18

It wasn't too married. Uh

Presenter21:20

Uh

Presenter21:21

You took a delegation of I quote regular American women to Communist China. Now this was a serious trip, but it must have been rather hilarious.

Shirley MacLaine21:32

It was hilarious. If anything is regular, of course I don't know where that description came from. What I tried to do was make a fair cross-section of women.

Shirley MacLaine21:41

I took a camera crew of four feminists and then uh how do you say what is a regular American? A regular American can be a a Native American, an Indian, or a Puerto Rican or a a rich Boston Brahmin or a twelve-year-old girl or a you know. I tried to do the best I could because I could only take twelve people.

Shirley MacLaine22:02

But it was hilarious. We learned more about ourselves as Americans than we did about China.

Presenter22:08

Let's have record number five.

Shirley MacLaine22:09

All right.

Shirley MacLaine22:11

This would be uh Nat King Cole's Nature Boy, which I adore. It's been one of my favorite songs because of the mellowness of his voice since I was about uh

Shirley MacLaine22:20

Early teens, and I love what it says.

Presenter22:24

As a boy

Presenter22:27

A very strange and chanty boy

Presenter22:32

They say he wandered very far, very far over land and sea

Presenter22:44

I'm a little shy

Presenter22:50

And said have I

Presenter22:54

Nature Boy Nat King Cole. Shirley, your first book, Don't Fall Off the Mountain, began as a conventional show business biography, but then it switched to your travels and matters which trouble your social conscience. And quite a lot of things trouble your social conscience.

Shirley MacLaine23:12

Yes, my Dad always used to say I was I had a missionary complex worrying too much about the underdog, and then when I would ask him, well, who would worry about them

Shirley MacLaine23:21

He was stuck because he really was not a conservative thinker.

Shirley MacLaine23:25

For example, like Ronald Reagan, who would say, Well, where there's a will, there's a way, you won't be an underdog, that sort of Horatio Alger thinking.

Shirley MacLaine23:32

But what I did when my travels was recognize how many starving, deprived people there were in the world, and it really touched me.

Presenter23:39

And then you wrote You Can Get There From Here.

Presenter23:42

A great deal about politics in that book.

Speaker 323:45

Mm-hmm.

Presenter23:46

And then your new one out on a limb.

Presenter23:49

A very personal book.

Presenter23:50

A great deal about your metaphysical beliefs and discoveries.

Shirley MacLaine23:55

Mm-hmm.

Shirley MacLaine23:56

That to me is the most um evolved.

Shirley MacLaine24:00

how shall I say, extension of my

Shirley MacLaine24:04

Search for identity.'Cause that's, after all, what I think I've been doing all these years. I think I was a dancer, a singer, an actress.

Shirley MacLaine24:11

A person who felt comfortable in comedy and comfortable in tragedy.

Shirley MacLaine24:16

And comfortable in writing because I was trying to know who I was, and I think that's.

Speaker 124:20

And I

Shirley MacLaine24:21

The reasons for all my love affairs, all my relationships with people I've met around the world. I feel comfortable everywhere, because everywhere I go I almost feel I've been there.

Shirley MacLaine24:33

And I think it began seriously in India, when I felt, oh, this is just too familiar for words. I know I have been here before.

Shirley MacLaine24:41

I began to explore my own feelings, my own intuitive intelligence, about.

Shirley MacLaine24:47

The feeling of always going home to each country that I traveled to. And I think that was.

Shirley MacLaine24:53

probably uh what was going on. I think I felt motivated to visit these places again, hopefully to listen and resonate to my sort of inner voice that Thoreau would talk about.

Presenter25:04

Let's get back to music.

Shirley MacLaine25:07

This would be Tony Bennett singing Lost in the Stars, the wilder piece, since I'm so interested in.

Shirley MacLaine25:15

The feeling of uh

Shirley MacLaine25:18

Where one fits in the cosmos, this has always appealed to me, and it's a very uh

Shirley MacLaine25:24

Comfortingly sad yet haunting.

Shirley MacLaine25:28

Lyric. I love the lyric.

Speaker 125:32

Yeah.

Presenter25:32

Yeah.

Shirley MacLaine25:32

And where

Presenter25:32

But

Presenter25:38

Out here

Speaker 125:43

In the style

Presenter26:04

Tony Bennett

Presenter26:06

Lost in the stars. Let's get back to the desert island again.

Presenter26:10

You must have picked up enough information on your travels to look after yourself pretty well if you were completely isolated. Could you build some kind of shelter?

Shirley MacLaine26:18

When you say desert island, couldn't I make my own desert island?

Shirley MacLaine26:22

Because I think that I can make anything I want to about my surroundings and

Shirley MacLaine26:27

My desires.

Presenter26:28

That's fair enough, providing it's a deserted island.

Shirley MacLaine26:31

Mm-hmm.

Presenter26:32

And it hasn't anything too elaborate in the way of natural resources. It's all yours. You pick your own.

Presenter26:38

What part of the world would you like it in?

Shirley MacLaine26:40

Probably the South Pacific.

Presenter26:42

Mm-hmm.

Shirley MacLaine26:42

There would be lots of fruit trees, mango trees, papayas, bananas, lemons and oranges, etc.

Presenter26:50

Would you fish as well, or would you be a fruitarian?

Shirley MacLaine26:52

I'd be a fruitarian, I think, and I'd have a couple of nut bushes around.

Presenter26:57

Yes. Yes, that's good.

Shirley MacLaine26:57

Yes. Yes, that's good.

Presenter27:01

Would you try to escape?

Shirley MacLaine27:01

Yeah.

Presenter27:05

Oh no.

Shirley MacLaine27:05

Onal

Shirley MacLaine27:06

I try to keep everyone who tried to land out.

Presenter27:10

Yeah. Uh

Shirley MacLaine27:11

It's my idea of paradise.

Shirley MacLaine27:14

to be on a desert island with plenty of juicy stuff to eat.

Shirley MacLaine27:18

And uh I would like to take one thing.

Presenter27:20

What's that?

Shirley MacLaine27:21

One ton.

Shirley MacLaine27:23

of blank paper.

Shirley MacLaine27:25

And lots of rolling pens.

Presenter27:27

Right.

Shirley MacLaine27:27

Right.

Presenter27:27

I was going to ask you to choose one luxury to take, so you've chosen that, so that's taken care of.

Shirley MacLaine27:33

Hmm.

Presenter27:34

Let's have

Presenter27:35

I think it's your seventh record now.

Shirley MacLaine27:37

This is Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake.

Shirley MacLaine27:40

It uh reminds me of my classical hard work, education, dedication, beauty, romanticism, discipline, lyricness.

Shirley MacLaine27:52

Sweat and my childhood of physical expression.

Presenter27:56

I will give you half a ton of bad issues as well.

Shirley MacLaine27:59

My feet are so big that's only gonna be one shoe.

Presenter29:03

An excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Ballet played by the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Roj Desvenski.

Presenter29:11

And now we come to your last record. What's that to be?

Shirley MacLaine29:14

Well, my last record is my own. I love my song, my theme song, If My Friends Could See Me Now,'cause that's about the way I feel every time I think about what I'm doing now and what my friends might think about it.

Presenter29:29

This is a number you always include in your one woman show.

Shirley MacLaine29:32

Mm-hmm.

Shirley MacLaine29:33

I love the arrangement.

Shirley MacLaine29:35

Cy Coleman did an arrangement to it that's wonderful. He wrote the original song. It's from Sweet Charity, but Cy Coleman adapted it for me in my One Woman Show.

Presenter29:39

Yes.

Shirley MacLaine29:43

And it makes me feel good.

Shirley MacLaine29:46

And hopefully the audience.

Speaker 329:48

Youth they But

Shirley MacLaine29:51

See me now, that little dusty group Terraites in round this million dollar chicken coop. I'm Robin Elbow

Speaker 329:59

Oh, it's with

Shirley MacLaine30:00

Uh

Speaker 330:00

Like

Shirley MacLaine30:00

Cream of the crop.

Speaker 330:01

Whoever said there ain't no room at the top, all I can say is wow.

Shirley MacLaine30:09

Down the girl. Up with the upper half. What a step I

Shirley MacLaine30:15

They'd never believe it if my friends could

Speaker 330:17

Yeah.

Presenter30:20

Your own recording from your One Woman show of If My Friends Could See Me Now from Sweet Charity.

Presenter30:27

How many countries have you performed your One Woman Show?

Shirley MacLaine30:30

Oh dear All through Europe, Scandinavia so that must be ten or eleven right there Australia, Mexico

Shirley MacLaine30:39

Canada

Presenter30:40

If you could take only one disc out of the eight you play discs, which one would you choose?

Shirley MacLaine30:46

Probably my own.

Shirley MacLaine30:49

It would make me feel good, like it does every time I sing it.

Presenter30:53

And you've already chosen the one luxury it would take. That's all at blank paper to write another book.

Presenter31:00

Choose one printed book. We'll give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare as a basic ration.

Shirley MacLaine31:07

I really don't like choosing one because I really find that too limiting.

Shirley MacLaine31:13

Mm Roy, I don't want to choose just one.

Presenter31:17

Alright.

Presenter31:19

Well, we have a dictionary so that whatever you write can be correctly.

Shirley MacLaine31:22

Oh, that's a good idea. I would take correctly. I would have a dictionary with

Shirley MacLaine31:29

Roger's thesaurus so that I could.

Shirley MacLaine31:32

Fill up the ton of blank pages with

Shirley MacLaine31:36

help with cross-references in English. But I would like the thesaurus to be translated into every language, so I would make plans before I went.

Presenter31:46

Every language.

Shirley MacLaine31:47

Mm-hmm.

Presenter31:47

There wouldn't be room on the island. I'll give you six thesauruses in six languages. That should get you through, shouldn't it?

Shirley MacLaine31:53

Get

Shirley MacLaine31:55

And a new tongue to pronounce it.

Presenter31:55

Ah.

Presenter31:57

And thank you, Shirley McLean, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter32:03

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 132:29

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.