Hollywood icon Shirley MacLaine has opened up about what she most regretted about working with Alfred Hitchcock and supporting Julia Roberts early in her career.
MacLaine is best known for starring in classics such as The Apartment and Terms of Endearment, the latter of which earned her the Best Actress award at the 1984 Oscars.
Despite being 90, MacLaine is still working today having most recently appeared in two episodes of the hit Hulu show Only Murders in the Building but her career got its start in 1955 working with Hitchcock.
The Trouble With Harry, a whodunnit mystery also starring John Forsythe, was MacLaine’s first film. The actor fondly recalled to Variety that Hitchcock’s “humour is what I loved the most.”
However, she now feels remorse about this period, adding: “As a director, he knew what he wanted and how to get it. But I was 20 years old at the time, and I’m not sure I appreciated how lucky I was.”
MacLaine wouldn’t work with Hitchcock again but she did go on to star in films for Billy Wilder, Don Siegel and Hal Ashby and acted alongside the likes of Jack Nicholson, Frank Sinatra, Jack Lemmon and a very young Julia Roberts.
MacLaine and Robert both starred in the 1989 crowd pleaser Steel Magnolias, which also features Dolly Parton, Sally Field and Olympia Dukakis.
The film, directed by Herbert Ross, was a big success earning Roberts a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination but MacLaine has accused Ross of bullying Roberts, claiming he would criticise every decision she made while filming.
“He did not treat her well, and he was so unfair to her,” says MacLaine. “Everyone else could see how talented and beautiful she was, so we didn’t take it too well. She seemed to threaten Herb Ross’ sense of power.”
MacLaine adds that the rest of the cast could see what was happening and stepped in to defend Roberts against Ross’s criticisms. “We told him to knock it off and to leave her alone,” said the 90-year-old.
Elsewhere she has an uneasy encounter with Donald Trump in the 1980s. In an excerpt from her new book, The Wall of Life: Pictures and Stories from This Marvelous Lifetime. In the book, she recalled meeting the former president “at some function” in the 1980s, noting that the whole encounter made her feel extremely uncomfortable.
“There was a vacant apartment in that building,” she told the outlet. “I went up to look at it and walked in because I knew it was available, and he was there. We met in a room where no one else was.”
She noted, “In his head, I could see he was undressing himself and me, and I got out of there very fast. Didn’t take the apartment either – and it was too expensive.”
