Academy Award-winning actress Shirley MacLaine earned the American Film Institute’s life-achievement award Thursday night. Friends and colleagues at the ceremony praised her accomplishments and cracked jokes about the reincarnation believer’s other lives. Jack Black, MacLaine’s current co-star in “Bernie,” presented a comical reel of himself commending the 78-year-old actress at award celebrations from prehistoric times to the Elizabethan era to U.S. colonial days.
MacLaine, the 40th recipient of the annual AFI honor, received the best-actress Oscar for “Terms of Endearment” and was nominated four other times for such films as 1958’s “Some Came Running,” 1960’s “The Apartment” and 1977’s “The Turning Point.” The AFI Awards was held in the Sony Pictures soundstage where MGM shot “The Wizard of Oz” and will air June 24 on TV Land.
