Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty; April 24, 1934) is an American actress and author with a career spanning over 70 years. In the 1960s, she was at the height of her film career and already well-established as one of Hollywood’s most distinctive and versatile actresses. MacLaine often played working-class women with complex emotions—strong, vulnerable, funny, and tragic all at once. She was part of a new wave of actresses who could carry a film without fitting the classic Hollywood mold of glamour and submissiveness.
MacLaine was known for her short, red hair, expressive eyes, and unconventional beauty. She had a tomboyish, quirky charm mixed with real emotional depth—making her stand out among her contemporaries. Off-screen, she was outspoken, intelligent, and beginning to explore spiritual and metaphysical subjects—topics she’d later become famous for writing about.
In 1960, MacLaine starred in Billy Wilder’s romantic drama The Apartment (1960), which received widespread critical acclaim and emerged as a major commercial success at the box-office. The film received ten Academy Award nominations, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction (Black and White) and Best Film Editing. MacLaine's performance in the film earned her a second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Reunited with Wilder and Lemmon for Irma la Douce (1963); MacLaine received her third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, in addition to winning her second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.
In the mid-1960s, Twentieth Century-Fox offered her a salary of $750,000 on a “pay or play” basis to appear in a movie adaptation of the musical Bloomer Girl, a fee equivalent to the paydays enjoyed by top box office stars of the time. However, the project was canceled, triggering a lawsuit.
MacLaine next starred in seven roles as seven different women in Vittorio DeSica’s episodic film Woman Times Seven (1967), a collection of seven stories of love and adultery set against a Paris backdrop. She followed that film with another comedy, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom in 1968. Both films were box office flops.
In 1969, MacLaine starred in the film version of the musical Sweet Charity, directed by Bob Fosse, and based on the script for Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria which was released a decade earlier. Gwen Verdon, who originated the role onstage, had hoped to play Charity in the film version; however, MacLaine won the role because her name was better known to audiences at the time. Verdon signed on as assistant to choreographer Bob Fosse, helping teach MacLaine dance moves and some of the more intricate routines. MacLaine received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical nomination. The film was not a financial success.
Here, below is a selection of 30 fascinating photos of a young Shirley MacLaine in the 1960s:
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