Shirley MacLaine on the Move

The face is 42 now, and wrinkles cut lightly through the freckles. The legs are tantalizingly fit, but the right heel is blistered, bandaged and slippered, the result of a walk down Chicago's Michigan Avenue. "One of the things that is so difficult for me in this business is that I have to be so careful how I get out of a cab, how I walk across the street, how I might turn an ankle," reflects Shirley MacLaine. "I've gotta be careful about everything." Maybe so, but 22 years after her first movie and 23 years after going from Broadway understudy to leading lady, Shirley MacLaine is still racing through life like a one-woman track team.

Now starring in her own concert production, Shirley is in the midst of a seven-country stage tour that will stretch into the summer. While on the road, she works each night between midnight and 4 a.m. on her third book--and first novel. On March 12 CBS will air her newest TV special, titled Where Do We Go from Here? (10 p.m. E.S.T.), an hour show that she describes as "a peek into the future of entertainment." A peek at MacLaine's future shows Shirley and Actress Anne Bancroft appearing this fall in The Turning Point, a movie about former ballet mates who reunite after 20 years. Says Shirley: "If I could only do one thing at a time, it would exhaust me. The way I am happiest is to do preferably four things, but certainly no less than two and a half."

And do them well. Nearly hobbled by her bleeding blister in Chicago, MacLaine took a shot of novocain, cut out the heel in her right shoe and completed her six-night sellout engagement at the Arie Crown Theater (4,500 seats). Her 80-minute bittersweet reflections on life ranged from a poignant rendition of Irma La Douce to an upbeat, gently self-mocking tune titled If There's a Wrong Way, Nobody Does It Like Me. Backed up by four dancers and a 25-piece band, she kicked, tapped, whirled and strutted her way flawlessly through a string of numbers. "When you're out there, you're sweating real sweat, you're busting your ass, and the people know that," she said jubilantly after a standing ovation. "Dancing is the most honored sweat-making theatrical endeavor there is."

Raunchy Humor. Some of MacLaine's past performances have shown a few scuff marks. During her solo show at Manhattan's Palace Theater last year, she offended fans with some raunchy onstage humor and with a characterization of New York as "the Karen Quinlan of cities"--a reference to the comatose New Jersey girl who aroused a nationwide debate on medical life-support responsibilities. Says Shirley: "I put my foot in my mouth a whole lot. But there's plenty of room in there for both feet, as I've proved quite often. With some left over."

MacLaine's excesses are always modified by her successes. Her first two books, the autobiographical Don't Fall off the Mountain and You Can Get There from Here, a journalistic narrative dealing with her 1973 visit to China, garnered good reviews. Her last two CBS-TV specials earned Emmys. Though she sometimes makes light of her film career ("I didn't exactly have a string of 25 hits; I had 25 'I was theres' "), she has collected four Oscar nominations.

When movies went macho a few years back, MacLaine temporarily disappeared from the screen. The Turning Point, her first picture since 1972, "is a good one," she claims. "But 20th Century-Fox loves it, so that worries me."

MacLaine's touring schedule keeps her from worrying too much. It also keeps her away from New York two weeks out of three, and parted from Daily News Columnist Pete Hamill, 41, the man in her life for the past five years. While at home she stays trim with a regimen of exercise and yoga and a low-sugar diet. On the road her style is more inner-city Holiday Inn than posh hotel. "They're like motels without cars--you can go down the hall and get a bucket of ice," she figures. "It's also fun to run into all those salesmen I used to know when I first got into the business."

For now, MacLaine shows no sign of ever planning to leave the business. Though she vocally supported George McGovern for President in 1972 and last January performed at Jimmy Carter's Inaugural, Shirley has pushed politics into the wings. She is considering a return trip to China once her book is finished, and thinks a Broadway musical would also be nice, especially if she could work on a New York movie at the same time. But MacLaine will keep on dancing, she insists, "as long as my legs don't give out and the people keep coming. My permanent existence seems to be movement."

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