Shirley MacLaine, 92, doesn't do many video appearances these days, but she made an exception this week for a movie she once considered a box-office disappointment. The Oscar-winning actress filmed a short clip supporting an upcoming screening of Sweet Charity at Southampton Playhouse, blowing a kiss to the camera and saying she wished she could attend the New York screening in person to see the film again.
The video was recorded for Southampton Playhouse's Tuesday Tunes series, according to KFOX, ahead of the screening set for Tuesday, August 25 at the Hill Street venue. In the clip, MacLaine reflected candidly on the film's history, saying that Sweet Charity did not do very well at the time of its release. That assessment lines up with the numbers: the 1969 musical was made on a $20 million budget but brought in just $8 million domestically, a shortfall that helped push the industry away from big-budget movie musicals for years afterward, according to Turner Classic Movies.
Despite its rocky reception, Sweet Charity carries real weight in film history. The movie marked Bob Fosse's feature directorial debut, three years before he'd win the Best Director Oscar for Cabaret, per Wikipedia. It was adapted from a Fellini film and grew out of the hit 1966 Broadway musical created by Fosse, composer Cy Coleman, lyricist Dorothy Fields and playwright Neil Simon, which originally starred Fosse's wife and muse, Gwen Verdon, as taxi dancer Charity Hope Valentine.
A Composer's Widow Set to Share Memories
The Southampton screening won't just be a movie night. Organizers say Cy Coleman's widow, Shelby Coleman, will take part in a post-film Q&A meant to give audiences a personal perspective on his career, according to the venue. Coleman earned his only Oscar nomination for the Sweet Charity score, one of three nominations the film received at the 1970 Academy Awards, alongside nods for Best Art Direction and Edith Head's costume design.
Coleman, who went on to win five Tony Awards for Broadway hits including City of Angels and Barnum, died of cardiac arrest in November 2004 at age 75. The Southampton screening will be hosted at the recently restored Southampton Playhouse, a 1932 landmark cinema that won the 2025 North America Cinema Award for Best Classic Refurbishment after being converted into a four-theater venue with IMAX and Dolby Atmos technology.
MacLaine's Long Onscreen Resume, and What's Next
MacLaine last appeared onscreen in 2022, in the film American Dreamer and in season 2 of Only Murders in the Building. She is reportedly set to appear next in the indie drama People Not Places, which also features Stephen Dorff. The film, written by Ellen Brown Furman and directed by her son, Brad Furman, was shot on location in Atlantic City and Ocean City, New Jersey in mid-2024, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. During filming, the crew turned The Shores, a senior living community in Ocean City, into an active movie set, with several residents and staff serving as background extras alongside MacLaine, per the Inquirer's reporting.
MacLaine remains a six-time Best Actress Oscar nominee, having won the award in 1984 for her role as Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment. She has said before, per People in 2019, that she wants to be a spokesperson for older women because she is one, and that she would never retire. The new video appearance and the ongoing work on People Not Places both suggest she's holding to that promise well into her 90s.
MacLaine's public presence over the past couple years has included more than film work. In October 2024 she released a photographic memoir titled The Wall of Life: Pictures and Stories from This Marvelous Lifetime, featuring more than 150 archival photos spanning her seven-decade career, according to Penguin Random House. She was also seen publicly at the 2023 Industry Dance Awards and Cancer Benefit Show in Los Angeles. The Southampton Playhouse screening of Sweet Charity is scheduled for Tuesday, August 25.
