Shirley Maclaine

Named after child actress Shirley Temple, who was six years old at the time, Shirley MacLean Beaty was born on April 24, 1934, in Richmond, Virginia. Her father, Ira Owens Beaty, was a professor of psychology, public school administrator, and a real estate agent. Her Canadian mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a drama teacher from Wolfville, Nova Scotia. MacLaine's younger brother is the actor, writer, and director Warren Beatty, who changed the spelling of his surname for his career. Both were raised by their parents as Baptists. Her mother's brother-in-law was A. A. MacLeod, a Communist member of the Ontario provincial legislature in the 1940s. While MacLaine was still a child, Ira Beaty moved the family from Richmond to Norfolk, and then to Arlington, then to Waverly, and then back to Arlington, where he worked at Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in Arlington, in 1945. MacLaine played baseball on a boys team, holding the record for most home runs, which earned her the nickname "Powerhouse". During the 1950s, the family resided in the Dominion Hills section of Arlington. As a toddler, she had weak ankles and fell over with the slightest misstep, so her mother decided to enroll her in ballet class at the Washington School of Ballet at the age of three. This was the beginning of her interest in performing. Strongly motivated by ballet, she never missed a class. In classical romantic pieces such as Romeo and Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty, she always played the boys' roles due to being the tallest in the group and the absence of males in the class. She eventually was cast in a substantial female role as the fairy godmother in Cinderella; while warming up backstage, she broke her ankle, but then tightened the ribbons on her toe shoes and proceeded to dance the role all the way through before calling for an ambulance. Ultimately she decided against making a career of professional ballet because she had grown too tall and was unable to perfect her technique. She explained that hers was unlike the ideal body type, lacking the requisite "beautifully constructed feet" of high arches, high insteps and a flexible ankle. She moved on to other forms of dancing as well as acting and musical theater. MacLaine attended Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia, where she was on the cheerleading squad and acted in school theatrical productions.The summer before her senior year of high school in Arlington, Virginia, MacLaine went to New York City to try acting and had minor success in the chorus of a production of Oklahoma! that toured the subway circuit. After graduation, she returned and made her Broadway debut dancing in the ensemble of the Broadway production of Me and Juliet (1953–1954). Afterwards she became an understudy to actress Carol Haney in The Pajama Game; in May 1954 Haney injured her ankle during a Wednesday matinee, and MacLaine performed in her place. A few months later, with Haney still injured, Jerry Lewis saw a matinee and urged film producer Hal B. Wallis to attend the evening performance with him, hoping to cast her in Artists and Models. Wallis signed her to work for Paramount Pictures.