Psychic To The Stars

IT DOES NOT TAKE A CRYSTAL BALL – boom – boom -to predict that Patricia McLaine is a psychic plying her trade a long way from the end of Blackpool pier. Chanel and Gucci leather bags of trunk-sized proportions are casually slung at her side, large and glittering baubles of the gold and precious variety adorn her freshly manicured hands, all topped off by a suit so sharp you could hold a séance on the shoulderpads. In Hollywood, it would appear that having your own psychic is as essential an accoutrement as that mansion in Bel Air and the table at Spago, and Ms. McLaine – bookings taken two months in advance, Oscar predictions a specialty – is clearly doing very nicely out of such a state of affairs.

It was, however, not ever thus. The 54-year-old psychic began her working life in a somewhat more humble capacity as a secretary at 20th Century Fox – the job, naturally, having been prophesied in a dream – until being told by both an astrologer and a clairvoyant that she was one of them, and one of them, furthermore, destined to read for “the rich and famous”.

Where better way to begin, then, than at Fox, where American actress Susan Strasberg became one of McLaine’s first “clients.” (“We became friends because of our mutual interest in reincarnation and astral projection.”) Strasberg introduced McLaine to her father Lee (founder of the legendary Actor’s Studio), actresses Ellen Burstyn (“We had some fascinating discussions about all the strange things that happened on the set of The Exorcist“), Diane Ladd (“I predicted her BAFTA award for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore“).

Shirley MacLaine (“Seems to me that she had had a past-life father/child relationship with Warren”), and Goldie Hawn who, most memorably, sought her out and then promptly dumped her, McLaine having (correctly) predicted Hawn’s two divorces, first from director Gus Trikonis (also a client) and then musician Bill Hudson.
“Goldie was very upset, ’cause she was so in love,” sighs McLaine. “She didn’t talk to me for a very long time. But then I predicted that a younger Pisces/Aries man (Step forward Kurt Russell – Ed.) would come into her life, that he would be climbing the ladder of success and that he would be a big star, that they would have a child and that this is probably the one she will grow old with.”
No such good news for Peter Sellers when he paid McLaine a visit just a year and was warned, “He did listen, and we lost him,” before his death.
“I warned him to take it easy,” recalls McLaine. “He had difficult astrological aspects, Saturn on his sun, and I would have told anyone with that aspect this was a time you must watch your health, that you must not tempt the fates through drugs, alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, to eat right, get your exercise, take care of yourself. He seemed to listen, but still we lost him.”
Ask Ms. McLaine today to make some specific Tinsel Town predictions and she comes over all non-specific, not unaccountably evasive. She does however, have words of wisdom for one Julia Roberts, “She’s very talented, but maybe to much too soon,” warns McLaine. “It’s the ones in their 30s or 40s that really appreciate success, but to get it in your early 20s can be very dangerous. She and Kiefer Sutherland were moving much too fast.  I think she’ll be much married but
don’t think she’ll be really ready settle down until she’s 28 or 30. He probably really had his heart broken.

Big Arnie?
“He’ll continue to pack ’em in with his super-glorious hero kind of non-dimensional movies,” predicts McLaine, rather uncontroversially.  “I would like to see less violence, more hope.”

Madonna?
“There’s some kind of a danger around her,” warns McLaine. “A fanatic fan or something like that.”
Oh dear. And Kevin Costner?

“He’s had his temptations with the ladies and he’s questioned his success but he shouldn’t do that,” cautioned McLaine. “It’s like Job in the Bible who began to question his good fortune with God and everything was taken away from him.”
Mmmm. When the name Sting linked with the notion of a dramatic and successful acting career, one suddenly feels obliged to protest that Ms. McLaine, Hollywood psychic and crystal ball-gazer to the stars, might possibly be losing her touch.
“I haven’t got as keen an interest as I used to when I was younger and very enamored of it all,” she admits. “No.  I know they’re just people with as much or more problems as other folk. If they have money, they’re always concerned about their emotional life, and if they’re happy emotionally they’re usually concerned about money. . .”

PHILLIPA BLOOM