Shirley MacLaine on famously distinguished actor: ‘I propositioned him and he turned me down’
Shirley MacLaine didn’t get to sleep with every man she wanted.
In her new book, “The Wall of Life,” the actress writes “Morgan Freeman. I propositioned him and he turned me down” underneath a photo of herself and “The Shawshank Redemption” star.
Elsewhere in the photographic memoir, the Oscar winner opens up about her unconventional marriage to producer Steve Parker, who died in 2001 at age 79.
The two were married in 1952, divorced in 1982 and shared a daughter Saachi. Parker was based in Japan, and MacLaine lived in the US. For many years, the two had an understanding.
The “Sweet Charity” star knew Parker had a mistress, and Parker was aware that MacLaine had relationships. One of them was with Robert Mitchum.
“Steve wanted to know how deeply involved I was, and I wasn’t deeply involved enough to get a divorce,” she writes. “And besides, there was too much that depended on our staying married. But Mitchum was a very intelligent, very interesting guy, and he was married, too.”
MacLaine also had an affair with Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, who, she says, “left the Soviet Union to be with me, and we were lovers for a few years.”
Despite other relationships — including dalliances with journalist Pete Hamill and Australian politician Andrew Peacock — MacLaine writes that she “never saw a future with any of these guys except Steve. It was enough to have an affair. And it wasn’t deceitful. Everyone was aware of the situation.”
“The Apartment” star reveals that she attended President John F. Kennedy’s birthday celebration in 1962 at Madison Square Garden, where Marilyn Monroe regaled him with a steamy rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
MacLaine writes that at the afterparty she saw the President walk out of a bedroom as his brother Bobby Kennedy walked in.
“Marilyn was in the bedroom …” MacLaine adds.
The nonagenarian, whose brother is Warren Beatty, also dishes on a few of her co-stars.
Jerry Lewis was a petulant brat who pouted when MacLaine’s legs were getting more attention than him on the set of “Artists and Models.”
She loved the script for “Terms of Endearment” but “did not enjoy [co-star] Debra Winger.”
“Steel Magnolias” director Herb Ross was allegedly a bully on set who “could be very cruel” to Julia Roberts and would belittle Dolly Parton by asking her, “Why don’t you take an acting lesson?”
Surprisingly, considering the length of her career, MacLaine writes of only one encounter with sexual harassment.
During her first meeting on the Paramount lot, in the mid-1950s, producer Hal Wallis greeted her by leaning in “to kiss me and stuck his tongue down my throat.
“I pulled back and spit in his face … I was just too young and naïve to be afraid,” she writes.
MacLaine add that Wallis never apologized but did gift her a snazzy MG sports car a few weeks later.
“Believe it or not,” she writes, “that was the first and last time I ever had anybody come on to me or be that forward in Hollywood.”
