Shirley MacLaine
Born: April 24 1934
Where: Richmond, Virginia, USA
The six-times Oscar nominated actress is probably best known for her Academy Award-winning role in Terms of Endearment.
Other career highlights include The Apartment and Sweet Charity and she also co-produced and directed the Oscar-winning documentary A China Memoir.
The daughter of a drama coach and a teacher, she is the sister of actor Warren Beatty and was named after child sensation Shirley Temple.
As a child she studied ballet and was a member of the school cheerleading squad at Washington-Lee High School.
After graduating she headed for New York (where she changed her name after a casting producer had problems with Shirley MacLaine Beatty.
While understudying Carol Haney in The Pyjama Game the star broke her ankle and MacLaine was asked to step into the breach.
A talent scout in the audience signed her to Paramount and she made her big screen debut in 1955 in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry.
Roles followed in Hot Spell and Around the World in Eighty Days before she received her first Oscar nomination for Some Came Running.
She got her second for Billy Wilder's romantic comedy The Apartment and her third for Wilder's 1963 comedy opposite Jack Lemmon.
In 1969, she brought her friend Bob Fosse from Broadway to direct her in Sweet Charity, which gave her the hit trademark song If My Friends Could See Me Now.
Her next Oscar nod did not come until 1977 when she received a nomination for the romantic drama The Turning Point with Anne Bancroft.
After 20 years in the film industry, she finally took home the Oscar for Best Actress for the romantic drama Terms of Endearment with Debra Winger.
Subsequent appearances included 1988's Madame Sousatzka, which took top prize at the Venice Film Festival.
In 1989, she starred with Dolly Parton, Sally Field and Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias and received rave reviews playing Meryl Streep's mother in Postcards from the Edge.
In 1996, she reprised her role from Terms of Endearment as Aurora Greenway in The Evening Star...but it failed to repeat its predecessor's success.
Recent appearances include Bewitched alongside Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell.
