Inside Shirley MacLaine’s complicated relationship with her actress daughter

Shirley MacLaine is one of Hollywood’s most iconic actresses but she is also a mom, welcoming her daughter Sachi in 1956.

However, the pair don’t have the best relationship, with Sachi writing in her 2013 autobiography that she often felt lonely during her time with her mom.

Shirley MacLaine’s husband and daughter

Shirley married Steve Parker in 1954 and they welcomed their daughter, Sachi, in 1956. 

Steve and Shirley had what they called an “open marriage” for almost 20 years until they divorced in 1982, with Steve working as a producer in Tokyo, Japan and Shirley acting in Hollywood.

As a child, Sachi lived in Japan with her dad full-time and would spend the summer breaks with her mom in Los Angeles.

In 1984 Sachi said in an interview that her mom “was always just a phone call away and I never felt abandoned or deserted by her”.

“I never would have given up my work to stay home,” Shirley once said of becoming a mom. “That was never a consideration, and Sachi would have felt the frustration had I done it.”

Shirley and Sachi’s relationship

However, 30 years later in her 2013 autobiography Lucky Me: My Life With — and Without — My Mom, Shirley MacLaine, Sachi candidly said that she was often lonely, and in an interview with 20/20 claimed that Shirley was often “very absent”.

She said: “I was very lonely — very lonely. Definitely. And I still struggle with abandonment issues and loneliness.”

Sachi’s claims

As a teenager Sachi was sent to boarding school, and in her book recalled that one Christmas neither of her parents showed up to pick her up. She was left stranded at the school by herself.

She also claimed she was cut off financially at the age of 17 and unable to attend college, and that her mother once claimed she had a broadcasting job waiting for her in Japan, only for Sachi to discover it did not exist, and it had been to break up a romance Shirley did not like.

“I’m still struggling with the guilt,” Sachi said in 2013 of writing the book. 

“But I decided to stop protecting her. [In writing the book] Fred [Stroppel, co-author] would have to pick me up off the floor because I felt I just couldn’t do it anymore. But I’m grateful I wrote it.”

Shirley’s response to Sachi’s claims

In a statement given at the time, Shirley called her daughter’s book “virtually all fiction”. 

“I’m sorry to see such a dishonest, opportunistic effort from my daughter,” she added.

Sachi’s early years

For many years Sachi lived away from the spotlight. When she was 18 she left Japan and traveled the world for six years, including Hawaii and New Zealand, where she was a ski instructor. 

Sachi also worked as a flight attendant for Qantas Airways and lived in Paris and worked as an au pair.

Actress years

In 1980 she returned to Los Angeles to see her mother and revealed that she had considered becoming an actor.

“She told me later that she had a sense ever since I was a kid that I could act but she never mentioned it to me,” Sachi said.

“She was in total neutral until that moment, and then encouraged me to no end. And it was the right time. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.”

Sachi has appeared in Scrooged, Peggy Sue Got Married, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael and more.

Most recently she has been a theater actor appearing in New York in David Rabe’s By the Look of Her.

Sachi’s own life

Sachi’s husband Sachi was engaged to an Australian sheep rancher but later married business executive Frank H. Murray in 1993.

After 20 years of marriage, Sachi and Murray split in 2011 and Sachi said it was a “real kick in the butt”.

“I was the good wifey-wifey for so long … safe and sound in my little cocoon and living in Greenwich with all the country clubs and all that,” she said in 2012. “I wanted to blow my brains out.”

Sachi’s own relationship with motherhood

Sachi is mom to two children during her marriage, son Frank Jr and daughter Arin, both in their twenties.