The first time I ever met our November Star of the Month Shirley MacLaine, she was backstage at an Academy Award® ceremony, sometime during the '70s. It was in the pressroom, the final Oscars® had just been handed out and the room was exploding with flashbulbs and famous faces - Elizabeth Taylor and Francois Truffaut over there, Yul Brynner and Alfred Hitchcock over here - even Katharine Hepburn was in the building that night. I remember the noise level was thundering and bedlam ruled as photographers were attempting to get their last, defining shots and reporters, with deadlines nipping at their heels, were hollering questions while scribbling notes. I wasn't supposed to be there at all; I was an uninvited interloper, back in the days when one could actually sneak past guards and checklists at events like the Oscars® without causing undue alarm or suspicion. (Those days are gone with the wind.) From my standpoint, it was a perfect example of Hollywood at its Hollywoodest. But it was Shirley MacLaine who truly made the night golden for me. She was there to work (she was an Oscar® presenter) and to be photographed (part of her job) and quoted (part of the process). I'd never met the lady before, and had no business taking up her time at that point, but passing by her in a hallway, I blurted out that I'd just read the new book she'd written, and thought it was terrific. That's when she did something uniquely MacLaine. For a the next half hour or so, despite pleas from hither and yon to "Come over here, Shirley!" or "Can we get a picture, Shirley?" she stood and talked to the unknown interloper, sharing thoughts about the writing process, answering questions and asking some of her own, sharing tips on the publishing world and - extremely rare for a celebrity at an "I'm-here-to-be-seen" affair like the Academy Awards® - gave our impromptu conversation her full focus. That, I've found out through the years, is what Shirley MacLaine is all about. She listens. She absorbs. She asks. She questions. She focuses. Not once during our visit at that Oscar® circus did she make me feel I was wasting her time. She was mine - for the moment, a courtesy and a compliment I've never forgotten. Through the succeeding years and through subsequent encounters, conversations and an official interview or two, like our Private Screenings premiering November 4, she's been just as focused, as forthcoming and as fascinating to be around. She is definitely an interviewer's dream - wonderfully outspoken and not shy about going on record with what she feels about her many costars, lovers, directors or any of the other 1001 things that interest her. She is there - thinking, listening, sharing, absorbing it all. She's also one of the best actresses we've ever had in our midst, and even after 48 years of stardom, she hasn't worn out her welcome, or her surprises. Join us every Tuesday throughout November and you'll see what I'm talking about.