My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir [Mass Market Paperback]

Shirley Maclaine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1996

An Academy Award-winning actress and the internationally bestselling author of Out on a Limb delivers her touching, warm, and headline-making memoir. In My Lucky Stars Shirley MacLaine talks candidly and personally about her four decades in Hollywood, especially about the men and women--her "lucky stars"--who touched and challenged her life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Maclaine's first book to be devoted exclusively to her insights into Hollywood includes reminisces about stars such as Nicholson and Sinatra.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

No UFOs or clairvoyants here; just MacLaine on her long Hollywood career.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553572334
• ISBN-13: 978-0553572339
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Actors & Actresses
  • #33 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Entertainers

More About the Author

Shirley MacLaine, Oscar winner, three-time Emmy winner, and ten-time Golden Globe winner, has appeared in more than fifty films, has been nominated for an Academy Award six times, and received the Oscar for Best Actress in 1984. A longtime outspoken advocate for civil rights and liberties, women¹s rights, and spiritual understanding, Shirley MacLaine has sold more than 20,000,000 copies of her nine international bestsellers, which include her acclaimed work The Camino.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Smart People Only, December 3, 2005

By 

Zoeeagleeye (Belfast, ME United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir (Hardcover)

This is a "Hollywood" memoir, not a "Shirley MacLaine" memoir, so be advised. Yeah, she's in there all right, but you get more, so much more. It's one of the most intelligent of all the star bios. If you are looking for a lot of mindless tibits and giggly gossip, you won't find much of that here. But if you are looking for real insight into some of our star icons, like Sinatra, Dean, Mitchum, this is the place to find it. Further, if you have any interest in what making movies is like, if you want to be an actor, director, cameraman or marry one, this is the book for you. If you are a creative person who puts yourself out there for the public, you will love this book. No one else has nailed this experience like MacLaine has. I will never see the Oscars or star interviews the same way again. In fact, the writing is so exceptional and insights so wide-ranging that this book should be required reading in any film class.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Many Men and Many Movies, December 17, 2004

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)

Is anyone's favorite star Shirley MacLaine? I doubt it. But she's spent a lot of time thinking about stardom and Hollywood and audience and appeal, and in MY LUCKY STARS she gives it to us without holding much back. Her love affair with Robert Mitchum is presented as a Romeo and Juliet folie a deux in which the two of them entered a private world out of which they never really found their way back out. When she became intimate with Yves Montand, even after knowing what he had done to Marilyn Monroe, his co-star on an earlier picture, you really have to wonder if Shirley has a masochistic streak. (I suppose co-starring with Jerry Lewis, you'd need one.) And frankly, her description of a sizzling sex affair with Danny Kaye didn't ring true.

Far more solid is her recounting of Debra Winger's acting out on the set of TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, and in one of the very last chapters, "SAY ANYTHING," Shirley really lets her hair down with a series of anecdotes about her fellow stars that are too hot to repeat; she protects their anonymity by not revealing their names, but their identities will be obvious to anyone who knows anything about Hollywood. The story about John and Bo Derek is far more graphic and gruesome than anything you could have imagined. Well, maybe it's not the Dereks, since Shirley doesn't name them, but hey, she does everything but draw their faces on the margins of the chapter. Read it if you're in the mood for a good shock.

By her own accounting, Mac Laine has now made three comebacks in the movies (with THE TURNING POINT, with TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, and with GUARDING TESS). She might go on to do more, who knows? You may not like her any more than you did before you started reading this book, but you'll have gotten a grainier look at Hollywood life than anything since the last Bruce Wagner novel. Well done, Shirley MacLaine!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of juicy tidbits... Mitchum and Montand a girl should, June 22, 2001

By 

Minnesota Raven "Viking Vixen" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)

be so lucky. I have not read Shirley's other books and I am not sure exactly why I purchased this one other than I suppose I was feeling especially nosey and liked the gossipy aspect of the book. Shirley tells a lot of her business but I suppose at this point and time in her life she could really care less how people judge her.

I always knew she had an unconventional marriage but just how unconventional was made very clear as she sustained long term affairs with Robert Mitchum, Danny Kaye and little escapades with some of her leading men like Yves Montand. What is very noticeable is that Shirley doesn't go into any of the issues associated with having such an open marriage at the time she did it. Her escapades are told with dry humor and a sort of emotional detachment. I do, however, believe that Robert Mitchum could have been one of her great loves instead of a long term affair.

I did appreciate her attempts to provide insight as to how affairs can happen so readily when making a picture. How they are in fact aided and abetted sometimes by directors and other crew members. Some directors won't let spouses on the set, some do questionable things to provoke reactions to get you to do the movie their way.... It's all very enlightening in that you do see how insecure people such as a Marilyn Monroe type would get eaten alive by these sort of games.

I suppose Frank Sinatra was really p_ _ _ _d off when this book came out because for all her flattery of him she paints such a sad picture of him. It almost.... I said almost, makes you want to overlook his ego maniac, self centered, I am God attitude towards the rest of the people on the planet. I also found her description of Debra Winger's antics on Terms of Endearment to be totally revolting. I have to think that if behavior like this is found acceptable in order to get the best from an actor then the behavior we read about shouldn't be a surprise. The anything goes behavior that is tolerated while making the movie could in fact and does create serious behavioral problems in some stars. In other words they expect real life to be like on the movie set and it doesn't work that way.

All in all I enjoyed the book, it's very juicy gossipy bits and her insights into old Hollywood.