Born in 1934, young Shirley Beaty had weak ankles as a toddler – would falling over with the slightest misstep. So her mother enrolled her in a ballet class at the age of three which sparked her interest in performing.

As Shirley MacLaine, she made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry in 1955, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress.

Shirley has been nominated for and won many awards including the Best Actress Academy Award for Terms of Endearment (1983), the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for both Ask Any Girl (1959) and The Apartment (1960) and an Emmy Award for the 1976 TV special, Gypsy In My Soul.

She has also won five Golden Globe Awards, and received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 1998 ceremony.

Shirley MacLaine has starred in many major films including Irma La Douce, The Turning Point, Being There, A Change of Seasons, Madame Sousatzka, Steel Magnolias, Postcards from the Edge, Used People, Guarding Tess and In Her Shoes. She has also appeared in several TV series, including a cameo role as Martha Levinson in Downton Abbey.

She has a strong interest in spirituality and metaphysics, the central theme of some of her best-selling books that describe these beliefs, document her world travels, and describe her Hollywood career.

“It all starts with self reflection. Then you can know and empathise more profoundly with someone else.”