Quotations and wisdom of the ages


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	ACTORS / ACTING . . . [QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS] see also: ACADEMY AWARDS BROADWAY CELEBRITIES CRITICS GARBO, GRETA ALFRED HITCHCOCK, HOLLYWOOD HOPE (BOB) KELLY, GENE MARX BROTHERS MONROE, MARILYN MOVIE DIALOGUE, MOVIE REVIEWS, MOVIES PUBLICITY REVIEWS SEX SYMBOLS STAGE TARZAN THEATER TAYLOR, ELIZABETH WAYNE, JOHN - [On "genius" in comedy:] Even Harold Lloyd, whose final clock-clinging minutes of "Safety Last" [1923] are the most audaciously funny on film, does not make Woody Allen's All-Star team: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, W. C. Fields, Groucho and Harpo Marx and Peter Sellers. Mr. Allen had included Mae West, but called the next day and busted her down to "an enormously gifted performer like Bob Hope and Jack Benny, but not a genius." --Interview with Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (b. 1935) by Franz Lidz and Steve Rushin in "New York Times" [30 January 2000]. - A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself. --Jean [-Marie-Lucien-Pierre] Anouilh (1910—1987) French playwright. Attributed in Connie Robertson _The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 15 [1998]. For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of a Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros. --Ethel Barrymore (1879—1959) American actress of the Barrymore family. Quoted in George Jean Nathan _The Theater in the Fifties_ [1953]. One of my chief regrets during my years in the theater is that I couldn't sit in the audience and watch me. --John Barrymore (John Sidney Blythe) (1882—1942) Shakespearean actor. Attributed in Clifton Fadiman _The American Treasury 1455—1955_ [1955]. [Suggested epitaph for a movie star:] She sleeps alone at last. --Robert Benchley (1889—1945) American humorist and newspaper columnist. Quoted in Edmund Fuller _2500 Anecdotes for All Occasions_ [1943]. There's no bus'ness like show bus'ness, Like no bus'ness I know. Ev'rything about it is appealing, Ev'rything the traffic will allow. Nowhere could you get that happy feeling When you are stealing that extra bow. [...] Even with a turkey that you know will fold, You may be stranded out in the cold, Still you wouldn't trade it for a sack of gold. Let's go on with the show, Let's go on with the show! --Irving Berlin (1888—1989) American songwriter. "There's No Business like Show Business" [1946 song] written for the musical _Annie Get Your Gun _. The most important thing in acting is honesty: if you can fake that, you've got it made. --George Burns [Nathan Birnbaum] (1896—1996) American comedian. Quoted in "Playboy" [March 1984]. ^^ Richard Burton (1925—1984) British stage and screen actor. During the filming of "The Assasination of Trotsky," Burton was playing a scene with French actor Alain Delon. Delon, as the nervous killer, was swinging an ice ax around; at one point the ax came dangerously close to Burton's head. 'You'd better be careful how you handle that ax,' cried Burton. 'There are plenty of French actors around, but if you kill me, there goes one-sixth of all the Welsh actors in the world.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^^ The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part. --Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616) Spanish novelist. "Don Quixote de la Mancha", part II, bk. I, ch. III [1615] "Gone With the Wind" is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling flat on his face and not Gary Cooper. --Gary Cooper (1901—1961) American film actor. After Gable's acceptance of the Rhett Butler role Cooper had turned down. In Larry Swindell _The Last Hero: A Biography of Gary Cooper_ [1980]. [Advice on acting:] Just say the lines and don't trip over the furniture. --Noël Coward (1899—1973) English playwright, actor, and composer. Quoted in Dick Richards _The Wit of Noël Coward_ [1968]. - [Of a starlet:] There, standing at the piano, was the original good time who had been had by all. --Bette Davis (Ruth Elizabeth Davis) (1908—1989) American actress. Quoted in Leslie Halliwell _The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes_ [1973]. & note: [On Marilyn Monroe:] She's the original good time that was had by all. --Bette Davis (Ruth Elizabeth Davis) (1908—1989) American actress. Quoted in Gene Shalit _Great Hollywood Wit_, p. 14 [2003]. - ^ George C. Scott is one of the few male geniuses I have ever worked with, the only one whom I have been awed by, the only one who makes me go, "I can't do that. I don't know how to do that. I wish I could buy some of that." Offstage, he is quiet and introverted. But at the same time he has more rage than anybody I know. And it works for him onstage. People come up to get him to sign autographs, and he dismisses them. He told me, "I don't like people." --Charles Durning (b. 1923) American stage and film actor. Quoted in Myrna Katz Frommer & Harvey Frommer _It Happened on Broadway: An Oral History of the Great White Way_ [1998]. ^ ^^ Clint Eastwood (b. 1930) American film actor and director. Eastwood was walking across the Warner lot one day when he was suddenly accosted by a young woman, who shouted, 'You're a no good sonafabitch, always making Mexicans the bad guys in your films and killing them.' 'Don't be angry,' responded the actor, 'I kill lots of other people too.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^^ My main problem is reconciling my gross habits with my net income. --Errol Flynn (1909—1959) Tasmanian-born motion-picture actor. Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [6 March 1955]. You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally he played my husband. If he had lived, I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older. --Lillian Gish (1896—1993) American stage and movie actress. Quoted in Abby Adams _An Uncommon Scold_ [1989]. I'll cable Hitler and ask him to shoot around you. --Samuel Goldwyn [Schmuel Gelbfisz] (1882—1974) American film producer. To David Niven, who left Hollywood in 1939 to sign up for the war; in David Niven, _Bring On the Empty Horses_ [1975]. [Replying on his deathbed to George Seaton's remark, 'I guess dying can be very hard':] Yes, but not as hard as playing comedy! --Edmund Gwenn (1875—1959) English actor. Quoted in Don Widener _Lemmon: A Biography_ [1975]. Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four. --attributed to Katharine Hepburn (1907—2003) American stage and motion-picture actress; winner of four Academy Awards. Actors are cattle. --Alfred Hitchcock (1899—1980) British-born film director. (Responding to protests from the acting community Hitchcock amended his remark to, "Actors should be treated like cattle.") - I would have won the Academy Award if not for one thing — my pictures. --Bob [Leslie Townes] Hope (1903—2003) British-born American entertainer and actor. In Bob Hope & Linda Hope _Bob Hope: My Life in Jokes_ [2003] They are doing things on the screen now that I wouldn't do in bed, if I could. --Bob [Leslie Townes] Hope (1903—2003) British-born American entertainer and actor. 1965 attributed remark. - Being in this business is a lot better than working in a car factory, a lot better than working in a coal mine. What's the big deal? People who moan and bitch and complain about what they do, I just want to say, 'Then leave! Get out of it! Go do something else!' I mean, here you are, making a lot of money, with people feeding you on the set, looking after your every need. I just want to kick them in the goolies, you know? You know when some of these megaphones of Hollywood show up on these awards shows, and just never shut the fuck up? I just want to say 'Accept your award. Say 'thank you' and get off!' I'm not interested in all that bullshit. There are surgeons and nurses and teachers, people out there who really deserve awards. --Anthony Hopkins (b. 1937) Welsh-born American actor. Interview with Alex Simon [2002]. [Of Clark Gable:] That man's ears make him look like a taxi-cab with both doors open. --Howard Hughes Jr. (1905—1976) American industrialist, aviator, and film producer. Quoted in Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg _Celluloid Muse_ [1969]. [On his adolescent love of performance:] At dusk [after attending the movies], I would gather our Kew Beach School gang and tell them the movies. I played all the parts, made all the sound effects, played horrific scenes of violent death — gunned down by the law, taking an Indian arrow in my back, whirling as the shots hit, and falling, hand clutched to my heart. Dying, they said, was the highlight of my repertoire. I remember sitting at dinner with my parents, my mother serving soup, and I would suddenly clutch my chest, eyes bulging, and topple off the chair onto the floor. I'd writhe there for a while, arms over my chest, making horrible sounds while my parents continued to talk, spoon the soup, step over me to take their plates to the kitchen. --Norman Jewison (b. 1926) Canadian film director. _This Terrible Business Has Been Good To Me_ [2005] [When asked by a press agent, "How do I get our leading lady's name in the Times?":] "Shoot her." --George S. Kaufman (1889—1961) American playwright, director, and producer. Quoted in Malcolm Goldstein _George S.Kaufman: His Life, His Theatre_ [1980]. Every time I'm in New York, I say a little prayer when passing the Empire State Building. A good friend of mine died up there. --Fay Wray (1907—2004) American film actress. In Claudia Luther "Obituaries: Fay Wray, 96; Actress, Object of Ape's Desire in 'King Kong'" _Los Angeles Times_ [10 August 2004]. Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case? --Peter Lorre [Ladislav (László) Löwenstein] (1904—1964) Hungarian-born American motion-picture actor. (To Vincent Price while at Bela Lugosi's funeral [1956].) - When Victor Mature applied to join the exclusive Los Angeles Country Club he was told: 'We don't accept actors.' 'I'm no actor,' he replied, 'and I've sixty-four pictures to prove it.' --_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Films, Film Stars and Film-Makers" - The public has never known the extent of it, but Ms. Olivia de Havilland was drawn into a maelstrom of Cold War intrigue in 1946. She discussed it in detail only once, when she was accused of being a communist in 1958 and was secretly called to Washington by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. "I wore a red suit and I said, 'Please don't think that the color explains my political opinion.' The staff investigator was infuriated with that line and roared, 'Strike that from the record.' Ms. de Havilland is often playfully mischievous. When Errol Flynn flirtatiously toyed with her on the set of "The Adventures of Robin Hood," she got even with him by flubbing kissing scenes, making them more passionate than needed, requiring retakes. The result: "He had, if I may say so, a little trouble with his tights," she remembers. --John Meroney "Olivia de Havilland Recalls Her Role — in the Cold War" _The Wall Street Journal_ [7 September 2006] - [Of director Sidney Lumet:] The only guy I know who could double-park in front of a whorehouse — he's that fast. --Paul Newman (1925—2008) Amercan actor. Quoted in Al Clark _The Film Yearbook_ [1984]. - What is acting but lying, and what is good acting but convincing lying? --Lord Laurence Olivier (1907—1989) English actor and director. "An Autobiography" [1982] [To Dustin Hoffman, who had stayed up for three nights to portray a sleepy character in "Marathon Man":] Dear boy, why not try acting? --Lord Laurence Olivier (1907—1989) English actor and director. Quoted in "Times" (London) [17 May 1982]. - ^^ Tatum O'Neal (b. 1963) American film actress, daughter of actor Ryan O'Neal. When fourteen-year-old Tatum O'Neal was making the film "International Velvet," a school inspector came to make sure that she was not falling behind in her studies. Noting that her math was not very good, he asked whether that did not bother her. The child star was unconcerned: "Oh, no, I'll have an accountant." ^^ Miss Hepburn runs the whole gamut of emotions from A to B. --Dorothy Parker (1893—1967) American critic and humorist. Referring to Katharine Hepburn's performance in the 1933 play "The Lake." Quoted in Max Herzberg _A Practical Anthology of Scathing Remarks and Acid Portraits_ [1941]. Reporter: What kind of governor will you be? Reagan: I don't know; I've never played a governor before. --Ronald Reagan (1911—2004) U.S. President [1981-1989] and former Hollywood actor. On being elected governor of California [1967]. Quoted in Lou Cannon _Reagan_ [1982] The Zulus know [Charlie] Chaplin better than Arkansas knows Garbo. --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935) American humorist and actor. "Atlantic Monthly" [August 1939] The reason I wanted to be an actress was because it gave me a chance to play people who are infinitely more interesting than I am and to say things infinitely more entertaining than anything I could think of myself. --Prunella Scales (b. 1932) British actress. Interview with Debbie Kruger in _Melbourne Weekly Magazine_ [2004]. ^ George C. Scott was once required to shoot a love scene with a certain voluptuous actress. "I apologize if I get an erection," he said getting into bed. "And I apologize if I don't." --anecdotage.com ^ - All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _As You Like It_, II, vii [1599—1600] I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _The Merchant of Venice_, I, i [1596—1597] - - It is greatly to Mrs. Patrick Campbell's credit that, bad as the play was, her acting was worse. It was a masterpiece of failure. --George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950) Irish dramatist and critic. Review of "Fedora" [25 May 1895]. Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend — if you have one. (Telegram inviting Winston Churchill to opening night of Pygmalion. Churchill wired back, "Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second — if there is one.") --George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950) Irish dramatist and critic. Quoted in William Manchester _The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932_ [1983]. - ^ Norma Talmadge (1895—1957) American silent movie actress. Some years into her retirement, after making over fifty movies and reigning as a queen of Hollywood for years, she was besieged by a crowd of admirers when she was spotted leaving a restaurant in Los Angeles. As she drove away, she called out to her fans, 'Go away! I don't need you anymore.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ [Referrring to the advent of talkies in 1927:] Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? The music — that's the big plus about this. --Harry Morris Warner [Hirsch Eichelbaum] (1881—1958) Polish-born co-founder of Warner Brothers. Quoted in Alexander Walker _Stardom: The Hollywood Phenomenon_ [1970]. ^^ John Wayne [Marion Michael Morrison] (1907—1979) American motion-picture actor. When playing a cameo role in the biblical epic "The Greatest Story Ever Told," Wayne had a line he spoke too laconically: 'Truly, this was the Son of God.' The director, George Stevens, reminded him he was talking about Jesus and said, 'You've got to deliver the line with more awe.' On his next take Wayne said, 'Aw, truly this was the Son of God.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] When I started, I knew I was no actor. [...] I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint, and a way of moving which meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. --John Wayne [Marion Michael Morrison] (1907—1979) American motion-picture actor. Quoted in Ronald L. Davis _Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne_ [1998]. ^^ California is a place where they shoot too many pictures and not enough actors. --attributed to Walter Winchell (1897—1972) American journalist. ----- histrionic [his-tree-ON-ik], adjective: 1. Of or relating to actors, acting, or the theater; befitting a theater; theatrical. 2. Overly dramatic; deliberately affected. Ex.: "And the same is true for the other judgments we make about tears, as when we deem them to be normal or excessive, sincere or manipulative, expressive or histrionic." --Tom Lutz, _Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears_ end page \| ABILITY - ABUSE \| ACADEMY AWARDS - ACCUSATION \| ACHIEVEMENT - ACQUAINTANCE \| ACTION/S \| ACTORS / ACTING \| ACTUARIES - ADVERSARIES \| ADVERSITY - ADVERTISING \| ADVICE \| AFFAIRS - AFGHANISTAN \| AGE \| AGNOSTICS - AIRPLANES \| ALCOHOL \| ALIBI - AMBITION \| AMERICA PAGE 1 (A-M) \| AMERICA PAGE 2 (N-Z) \| AMERICANS \| AMERICAN INDIANS \| AMERICAN REVOLUTION \| AMUSEMENT - ANCESTORS \| ANGER \| ANIMAL RIGHTS - ANIMALS \| ANIMOSITIES - APATHY \| APOLOGY & APPEARANCE \| APPEASEMENT \| APPLAUSE - APRIL \| ARCHAEOLOGISTS - ARCHITECTURE \| ARGUMENT \| ARISTOCRACY - ART \| ASHAMED - ASTROLOGY \| ATHEISM \| ATOM BOMB - ATTRACTION \| AUSTRALIA \| AUTHORITY - AUTOMOBILES \| AUTUMN - AWARENESS \| \| A \| B \| C \| D \| E \| F \| G \| \| Return Home \| The Credits \| The Cast \| Act 1 \| Act 2 \| Act 3 \| The Reviews \|