"Who knew at 45", winked the charmingly irrepressible Shirley MacLaine at the World Premiere of her feature directorial film debut, Bruno, on 15 April at the Los Angeles International Film Festival, "that I'd be doing indie films! Life is so unpredictable, just like the Indies themselves."

It was at the age of four that Shirley MacLaine made her first public appearance dancing on stage, a performing arts occupation that she continued throughout her school days and continued in New York Broadway shows after high school. Her first movie appearance was under the direction of the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, in The Trouble with Harry. She went on to star in numerous dramas and comedies and was nominated for several Academy Awards: Some Came Running (1959), The Apartment (1960), Irma La Douce (1963) and The Turning Point (1977). She won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Terms of Endearment (1983).

The talented, vivacious actress ventured into television with her own series "Shirley's World from 1971-1972 playing a globe-trotting journalist, the theatre with the one-woman show "A Gypsy in My Soul" and the song-and-dance number "Shirley MacLaine on Broadway." MacLaine also wrote, produced and co-directed the Oscar-nominated documentary The Other Half of the Sky: China Memoir in which she recounted her tour to China with a women's group.

Shirley MacLaine also rallied for many liberal causes and was active politics. She is associated with New Age mysticism and believes strongly in reincarnation, which she explored in the best-selling book "Out On a Limb." Her many other books published include the autobiographical "Don't Fall Off the Mountain."