There’s something about Shirley

Shirley MacLaine, all of 71 years, is back, happily doing what she loves best: acting.

After a few years’ absence – during which she enriched herself spiritually and wrote a non-fiction book – the diminutive and highly-opinionated Hollywood legend marks a resounding return this year in three well-received movies: last summer’s Bewitched with Nicole Kidman, Curtis Hanson’s In Her Shoes with Cameron Diaz (for which she got a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress nod) and the new Jennifer Aniston vehicle Rumor Has It.

In Rumor Has It, she plays the grandmother Katharine, rumored to have been the basis for the Mrs. Robinson character in The Graduate.

Spawned by a wild rumor in normally sedate Pasadena, the rumor turned into a legend, a book got written and a movie was made but the real story on how the events transpired remained unknown until the day she confesses everything to her granddaughter, Sarah.

"I don’t give a s–t about much of anything. I’m kind of free from that. I care about my own sense of identity and I think the world is so cynically funny now and I’m looking at everything and seeing how dumbed down and stupid we all are," she says when asked how she reacts to rumors now after being in the business for 50 years.

The feisty actress made her film debut at 21 in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry. Three years after, she got her first Oscar nomination as Ginny Moorehead in Some Came Running in 1958. In 1983, after four luckless nominations, she finally won the Best Actress trophy for playing Aurora Greenway in the classic tearjerker Terms of Endearment. She has since made more than 50 movies, appearing with nearly every actor working today.

MacLaine has also written a series of best-selling books, most notably her autobiography Don’t Fall off the Mountain and her revealing experience with reincarnation in Out on a Limb.

Recently, the celebrated actress met with a select group of journalists from around the world for a roundtable interview to talk about her role in Rumor Has It. She came dressed in her trademark dark suit and bright-colored scarf. She enjoyed gobbling on the sweet Italian mini mints while subtly drawing us to her various views on being a celebrity, dealing with nasty rumors, divorces and her spirituality.

"When is a rumor a fact?" she asks rhetorically. "There is a synergistic kind of thing that could actually make a rumor a fact. You start thinking about those things when you do movies and make choices and what’s going on in the world is so cynically disappointing to me now that I don’t care about those I love."

"My principles, to an extent, say I can’t be politically active because I’m spiritually active and I’m living and have chosen to live in New Mexico around nature which has balance and harmony and a kind of pecking order that’s respected," she replies in response to a question about her brother Warren Beatty’s political ambitions.

The actress may get serious on topics special to her but when it comes to rumors surrounding co-star Jennifer Aniston, MacLaine offers a winning explanation: "The most ludicrous rumor I would like to set straight now is the one that says she has a new friend called Vince Vaughn. It’s not true! He (Vaughn) likes older women. He’s my friend. It was me with Vince Vaughn in the car in Tuscon. It was me who was drinking because I’ve earned the right."

MacLaine, however, quickly got serious again and regaled us with tales of the spiritual, which rubbed off on Aniston, who disclosed, in our interview with her, that she herself has her own set of beliefs and spirituality, though not directly linked to any organized religion.

MacLaine expressed disbelief at the amount of press coverage Aniston is getting. She feels sorry for her. MacLaine disclosed that during her time, paparazzi were a lot more respectful of their privacy.

"Divorce is very, very difficult and painful and it also calls into question, what was I thinking? Where did it go wrong? What have I done wrong? Why did I create this? Why did I like him in the first place? All of that stuff. But still it’s about the person and themselves. It’s not about the other person," she says.

MacLaine has long left Hollywood for a ranch in New Mexico with her 12 dogs and several horses. She only comes to L.A. when she has a movie to promote or when she has a very important function to attend. Otherwise, she says Hollywood is far from her mind.

MacLaine stressed she still loves Hollywood, except that she has found a way to commune with nature and nurture her spirituality in a place far, far away from the prying lenses of the paparazzi. On her website: http://www.shirleymaclaine.com, MacLaine shares her spirituality through various stories she posts there.

But there is no discounting her love for the movies. At the recent Premiere Women in Hollywood show, MacLaine was quoted as saying she will be making movies before Meryl Streep starts accepting grandmother roles.

"If she (Streep) decides to become 65, I won’t get first crack at the scripts," MacLaine jokes.

(Rumor Has It opens tomorrow in Metro theaters).