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Natural Clown. Shirley is a "fringie" (part-time member) of "The Clan," an exclusive, halfway-out social clique headed by Sinatra and Dean Martin, and she is still frankly delighted by their attentions. "I'm shy and introverted with them, and wondering if I'm doing the right thing," she says. "I wouldn't presume to try to be anything but myself with them." The Clan, in turn, treats her as a sort of mascot. Says Clansman Peter Lawford: "She's a guy, a funny girl, a natural clown." Says Dean Martin: "She's also a great audience. She loves to laugh. I'd be the biggest hit in the world if I only had 500 like her in every audience." Adds Sinatra: "We have a kind of trust in each other. If Shirley tells me to read a book, I read it. I trust her taste and knowledge, and I think she trusts mine. She is kind of a kook, * but very warm."
If there are times when even The Clan cannot keep Shirley going, when she withdraws into a corner to stare at the wall or struggle with sudden tears, The Clan accepts this, too. Her sudden shifts of mood and attention are as striking offscreen as on. The core of her life, she insists, is her family, her Japan-based husband Steve Parker and her two-year-old daughter Stephanie. Friends still remember with a kind of awed surprise the evening she brought Steffie to a party, stuck the child in a wicker basket and put her in a closet to sleep. Later the party moved off in search of a progressive jazz pianist who was never found. Far later it wound up at a nightspot called the Crescendo. Steffie was still in the closet, sleeping peacefully.
Shirley has a way of forgetting all about herself, too. "When she saw Imitation of Life" recalls a friend, "she was moved to tears. Hours later, when she got home, she glanced in a mirror by accident and noticed her mascara streaked down her cheeks. She was upset because nobody had bothered to tell her, but most people would have looked in a mirror on purpose long before then."
At such evidence of her kookiness, a Clansman will shrug his shoulders and call her "a ring-a-ding," using a Clan word that stands for anything puzzling, hard to define, but generally wonderful.
This Togetherness Stuff. There are non-Clansmen in town whose attitude toward Shirley is somewhat more analytical. They focus on the calculation behind the talent, enjoy the "natural" comedienne but see the cool planning that makes her tick. They take pleasure in her company, as did the friend who squired her to Santa Anita one afternoon, smug in the knowledge that she had telephoned a gagwriter and announced: "I'm going to the races. Give me ten jokes on racing."