Lunch Break Video: Shirley MacLaine’s irascible Ouisa Boudreaux on a rampage in “Steel Magnolias”

After a career as a young actress in such films as The Apartment, Sweet Charity, Some Came Running, Children’s Hour and Irma la Douce, Shirley MacLaine was able to segue into character roles once she was in her mid-40s.

After starring in The Turning Point, she won the Oscar for her performance as Debra Winger’s mother in Terms of Endearment (Give my daughter the shooooooooooot!”) then had some real fun in the 1990 film Steel Magnolias as the totally grumpy and totally funny Ouisa Boudreaux.

Her scenes with Olympia Dukakis are especially funny but I like this clip a lot because it captures Ouisa completely, arriving at Truvy’s beauty show holding her wig in one hand and her dog’s leash in the other and turning to the petrified Darryl Hannah and barking: “Who the hell are you?”

Enjoy!