About the Author

Shirley MacLaine, Oscar(r)-, three-time Emmy(r)-, and ten-time Golden Globe(t)-winning actress, has appeared in more than fifty films, been nominated for an Academy Award six times, and received the Oscar for Best Actress in 1984. Most recently, Shirley was honored with the 1999 Golden Bear Award for lifetime achievement at the Berlin International Film Festival and the 1998 Cecil B. DeMille Award for outstanding contribution to the entertainment field. She has also won two British Academy awards, two German Silver Bear and Golden Camera awards, two Volpi Cup awards at the Venice Film Festival, two Donatello awards in Italy, and New York Film Critics and Los Angeles Film Critics awards. A longtime outspoken advocate for civil rights and liberties, Shirley is the author of eight international bestsellers -- Don't Fall Off the Mountain, You Can Get There from Here, Out on a Limb, Dancing in the Light, It's All in the Playing, Going Within, Dance While You Can, and My Lucky Stars. And in her latest film, Bruno, she costars and makes her directorial debut. She lives in Malibu, California, and Abiquiu, New Mexico.

Reviews

Following a centuries-old tradition, entertainer MacLaine walked nearly 500 miles across northern Spain's Camino Santiago de Compostela. This memoir of her formidable journey, like her other books, is a likely candidate for bestsellerdom as well as for ridicule in some quarters. An effort to "feel human again," her physical feat was daunting: she hiked for 10 hours a day on her own, often in intense heat, and slept in refugios--crowded, dirty shelters. Though she observes the small villages, historic cathedrals and other trekkers along the way, MacLaine is most interested in her interior journey. The actress, who has written before about her numerous past lives in such books as Out on a Limb and Dancing in the Light, senses that she's walked the Camino before as a coffee-colored, dark-haired woman of Charlemagne's time. Visited in dreams by a spiritual guide, she connects her various lives and soul mates, revealing that her former lover (in this life) was Olaf Palme, the assassinated Swedish Prime Minister. As the journey progresses, she revisits the origins of the human race in the edenic Lemuria, then the dawn of Atlantis and on to ADAMic civilization. On the earthly plane, MacLaine seems to enjoy evading the press, which she compares to fearsome dogs, and whose pursuit escalates as she gets closer to the end of the journey. Though she completed the Camino in 30 days instead of the planned 40, her arrival in Santiago lacks a Hollywood finale. Instead, she slips into the famous cathedral and leaves immediately for Madrid. Major ad/promo; author tour; 20-city TV satellite tour; 20-city radio satellite tour. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.