"My job in life was to help the guy I was with, to help him see his full potential," she explains easily. "They all complained about that." She shrugs slightly. "They saw it as me being disappointed in them." She shakes her head and pushes at her bob again with her hands. "Very strange," she sighs with bemused resignation.
Her only marriage was to Steve Parker, a film producer and businessman. She has one daughter, Sachi Parker, and two grandchildren.
"I was married for 30 years, but he lived in Japan," she explains. "I lived with many other men."
Was there a happy period in her marriage?
She allows a short silence, as if carefully considering the question. "No," she concludes with certainty.
Why do it then?
"Because he was my best friend. I think he kept me from marrying someone where it would have been passionate."
Whom?
"Many," she answers. Her lovers included Robert Mitchum and Danny Kaye, among others. "Men always wanted to get married, in my experience. So I stayed married to Steve so that I wouldn't marry them. I didn't like the idea of marriage. I find it too compromising, too confining. My parents had a 55-year bad marriage. I never knew anyone in a happy marriage."
She lives alone in her house in Santa Fe, with 12 dogs as well as horses, elks and coyotes.
"I adore being alone," she says. "I cannot live without being alone for a lot of the time. ... I think a lot of people think they shouldn't be alone. They think they should be afraid. They think they are missing being the other half of something."
Doesn't she miss intimacy?
"I have that. I have a lot of friends who are around. I'm having a wonderful time in my life now with my platonic relationships with men and women, because when that sexual tension is off the requirement of the interplay, then you get to who the people really are, and to yourself."
She doesn't miss sexual intimacy?
"No. I don't miss that like I would have when I was younger. Oh no. Uh huh," she says, wagging one bejewelled fingertip.
Why?
"Because I am happy and content with myself. I cuddle with my dog."
She has written a book about the spiritual richness of having pets. Terry, her female terrier, was apparently with her in a previous lifetime in ancient Egypt.
Ms. MacLaine has palpitated every corner of her soul in an effort to know herself, and she makes no apology for the affectionate self-regard her investigations have yielded.
"Who can say it's crazy if it's my experience?" she asks rhetorically. "It's a very self-centred time of life, which you could say is selfish but you have the right, I think."
I cannot leave without asking about UFO sightings.
"They come around my ranch a lot," she says without hesitation. "They are always there when I am not there." She smiles knowingly. "My friends who stay there when I am on tour see them all the time."
Does she know why they don't come when she is there?
She looks at me with a serene expression. "Because I'd probably get on them and leave."
