Shirley MacLaine Addresses Why She and Brother Warren Beatty Never Made a Movie Together

The Oscar winner shares stories and never-seen photos of her and her Oscar-winning sibling in her new book ‘The Wall of Life’

Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty

Shirley MacLaine (left); Warren Beatty. Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Getty; Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty

Shirley MacLaine and her brother Warren Beatty are two of the most successful siblings ever to hit Hollywood. They’re both Oscar-winning legends who have appeared in a number of classic films.

They’ve both done just about everything — except star in a movie together.

But in her new book The Wall of Life: Pictures and Stories from This Marvelous Lifetime, MacLaine, 90, reveals that an onscreen team-up with Beatty, 87, once almost happened. Well, sort of.

There was one time they talked about working together — in the late ’60s when Beatty, then still a rising star, was producing a movie called Bonnie and Clyde. “They were going to offer me the role of Bonnie,” MacLaine writes, “but when it was decided that Warren was going to play Clyde, they got someone else [Faye Dunaway], for obvious reasons.”

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in 1967’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’.Everett Collection

The Wall of Life includes a number of never-before-seen photos of MacLaine and Beatty as children. Growing up, she says, she thought of herself as her baby brother’s protector, and they were extremely tight. They still are.

“We’re very close,” she tells PEOPLE. “We’re very close. We don’t let that be known, but we’re very close.”

She’s still not sure why they never found something else to do together after Bonnie and Clyde fell through. “I don’t know what happened there,” she says. “I was busy making my own [movies], and he was busy making his own. I guess there weren’t parts that fit us together. I don’t know. But we did not do it on purpose.”

Shirley Maclaine and her brother, Warren Beatty, at the April 18th Academy Awards presentation.

Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty.Bettmann Archive

Putting together her new book and looking at all the old photos of them together evoked a lot of memories for MacLaine, who writes that her brother never shared his acting aspirations with her when they were younger. And she’s well aware that, in Hollywood, it’s very rare for two siblings to reach equal heights of such great success.

“I’ve often wondered why he made it, too,” she says. “Because when you’re that young, you don’t realize how talented your siblings are. I knew he was going to be handsome, and I took care of him until I left. He was just my little brother.”

Actors Shirley MacLaine (L) and Warren Beatty during the 36th AFI Life Achievement Award tribute to Warren Beatty held at the Kodak Theatre on June 12, 2008 in Hollywood, California. The show will air on USA Network at 9PM PST on June 25, 2008.

Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty in 2008.Kevin Winter/Getty

In addition to her recollections about Beatty and their parents, MacLaine dives into to her career, her costars and her great loves in The Wall of Life. “I’ve had an enchanted life,” she says.

The Wall of Life will be published on Oct. 22 by Crown Publishing and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.