I’m Over All That and Other Confessions
By Shirley MacLaine (Atria Books, 2011)
This is a dumb, lightweight book in which whimsical old Shirley shares things she’s gotten over. And some things she hasn’t. Duly noted, the chapter heading on page 199 reads:
I Will Never Get Over the Thrill of Live Performing.
MacLaine rhapsodizes over how “there is no other life when you are performing live,” how “the miraculous magic of self-expression and the appreciation the audience feels overrides everything,” how you “become one with the audience, one with the music, the lights and the collective spirit of the audience. They send you energy. You send it back.” How, “Yes, it is better than sex. It is being One with all there is.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Shirley MacLaine hasn’t appeared onstage in a Broadway show for over 28 years.