I am a huge Shirley MacLaine fan, which developed after I saw Sweet Charity when I was a kid. Shirley was a close friend of my late Uncle Charlie, with whom she worked on some NY Dem business. In fact, when I was in NYC probably in 1973 (maybe, can't recall), Charlie asked me who I'd like to meet, and after my first choice was rejected (Leonard Bernstein--Charlie stated, and this is a quote, "I wouldn't leave you alone with Lenny"), I asked to meet Shirley MacLaine. Unfortunately she was in China at the time making that documentary. I was too stupid to ask to meet Sondheim, I think that might have been arranged, but I was too young to realize his significance at the time. I ended up meeting Gerry Page and Rip Torn and also had lunch with Harrison Starr, who was an Associate Producer of The Cardinal, IIRC.