Read Online I’m Over All That by Shirley Maclaine - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Shirley Maclaine
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hills. Entire civilizations are known to us today only because of how long-dead people looked, dressed, paraded, and even adorned themselves for death. Our museums are full of the stuff of their vanity. But what does vanity mean really? Does it revolve around how others see us or how we see ourselves?
When I was a teenager I was embarrassed by my red hair and freckles. And I had a tiny birthmark under my left arm, which today I hardly notice. But as young people we feel embarrassed by being seen as different in any way. We are inculcated with advertising propaganda as to what is acceptable and pretty.
As I’ve grown older, of course, I’ve dealt with a new set of vanity issues. I don’t know if I would have been concerned in a different way if I hadn’t been in show business. I honestly never cared how I looked or how I dressed until I was about fifty years old. I was a “character” in life and a character in films. My roles in films weren’t dependent on beauty. I thought I was pretty enough once those freckles left my face around the age of 20 . As a dancer, I exercised when I worked in a musical, and I thought that was enough. I ate anything I wanted and didn’t put on weight. Of course, weight in those days was a healthy subject, not an unhealthy one.
I remember making The Trouble with Harry for Alfred Hitchcock. I had just come out of the chorus of Pajama Game on Broadway and was thin and broke. My diet as a chorus girl was Horn & Hardart’s Automat food. I could live on ten cents a meal. There were lemons and sugar at the tables and water at the fountain. I’d make lemonade. Peanut butter and raisin bread sandwiches were ten cents in the food windows. So I had my peanut butter–raisin bread sandwich and lemonade for two nickels. A good diet, too.
Working with Hitch meant eating with him. On location for Harry, my breakfast was pancakes, fried eggs, fruit, toast, and jam. My lunch was worse because the desserts were heaven, and dinner was something I had to learn how to eat with him: meat, potatoes, appetizers, seven-course meals and Grand Marnier soufflés or the like to top it off. I never realized that my weight was visibly changing on film—maybe ten pounds from one scene to another when the film was assembled! The president of Paramount called me and asked me what I thought I was doing. I said, “Eating what I couldn’t afford before.” He said, “Now you’ve got some money, you’re not going to starve. Quit or we’ll have to shoot retakes.” That hadn’t occurred to me. Hitch obviously had a food problem. But with him, carrying extra weight was his image. I was a different story.
Because I had a high metabolism and moved around a lot, I had no real problem until I was about fifty. Then vanity became an issue. Until then, I hardly sat in the makeup chair. Frank Westmore (my makeup man) literally wrestled me to the floor on several occasions because his job was on the line if I didn’t look pretty. I hated the creamy texture of the makeup, and the itch of the mascara, and above all the time I thought I was wasting sitting in the chair. My hairstyle was the result of a stage manager in Me and Juliet dunking my head in the chorus basement sink. I had long red hair that swished around on stage and drew attention away from the star, Isabel Bigley (which, truth be told, wasn’t difficult). When he let me up for air, the stage manager chopped off my ponytail and pushed me back onstage. The bowl cut has been my style ever since. I was not very imaginative, and hairstyles took too much time. Besides, my pixie cut worked well when dancing Bob Fosse’s hat routines.
Soon after coming to Hollywood, I realized that wigs were the way to go, not only when playing parts on screen but also in life, because I never had to sit with curlers under the dryer. That saved time in the makeup chair too. The hairdresser did all the work when I wasn’t there. But when my middle fifties came around, I began to
When I was a teenager I was embarrassed by my red hair and freckles. And I had a tiny birthmark under my left arm, which today I hardly notice. But as young people we feel embarrassed by being seen as different in any way. We are inculcated with advertising propaganda as to what is acceptable and pretty.
As I’ve grown older, of course, I’ve dealt with a new set of vanity issues. I don’t know if I would have been concerned in a different way if I hadn’t been in show business. I honestly never cared how I looked or how I dressed until I was about fifty years old. I was a “character” in life and a character in films. My roles in films weren’t dependent on beauty. I thought I was pretty enough once those freckles left my face around the age of 20 . As a dancer, I exercised when I worked in a musical, and I thought that was enough. I ate anything I wanted and didn’t put on weight. Of course, weight in those days was a healthy subject, not an unhealthy one.
I remember making The Trouble with Harry for Alfred Hitchcock. I had just come out of the chorus of Pajama Game on Broadway and was thin and broke. My diet as a chorus girl was Horn & Hardart’s Automat food. I could live on ten cents a meal. There were lemons and sugar at the tables and water at the fountain. I’d make lemonade. Peanut butter and raisin bread sandwiches were ten cents in the food windows. So I had my peanut butter–raisin bread sandwich and lemonade for two nickels. A good diet, too.
Working with Hitch meant eating with him. On location for Harry, my breakfast was pancakes, fried eggs, fruit, toast, and jam. My lunch was worse because the desserts were heaven, and dinner was something I had to learn how to eat with him: meat, potatoes, appetizers, seven-course meals and Grand Marnier soufflés or the like to top it off. I never realized that my weight was visibly changing on film—maybe ten pounds from one scene to another when the film was assembled! The president of Paramount called me and asked me what I thought I was doing. I said, “Eating what I couldn’t afford before.” He said, “Now you’ve got some money, you’re not going to starve. Quit or we’ll have to shoot retakes.” That hadn’t occurred to me. Hitch obviously had a food problem. But with him, carrying extra weight was his image. I was a different story.
Because I had a high metabolism and moved around a lot, I had no real problem until I was about fifty. Then vanity became an issue. Until then, I hardly sat in the makeup chair. Frank Westmore (my makeup man) literally wrestled me to the floor on several occasions because his job was on the line if I didn’t look pretty. I hated the creamy texture of the makeup, and the itch of the mascara, and above all the time I thought I was wasting sitting in the chair. My hairstyle was the result of a stage manager in Me and Juliet dunking my head in the chorus basement sink. I had long red hair that swished around on stage and drew attention away from the star, Isabel Bigley (which, truth be told, wasn’t difficult). When he let me up for air, the stage manager chopped off my ponytail and pushed me back onstage. The bowl cut has been my style ever since. I was not very imaginative, and hairstyles took too much time. Besides, my pixie cut worked well when dancing Bob Fosse’s hat routines.
Soon after coming to Hollywood, I realized that wigs were the way to go, not only when playing parts on screen but also in life, because I never had to sit with curlers under the dryer. That saved time in the makeup chair too. The hairdresser did all the work when I wasn’t there. But when my middle fifties came around, I began to
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