Hello, everyone. I'm actually in sunny Florida at the moment, but loaded this post up ahead of time to drop while I'm away. Many of my readers seem to enjoy these collections of celebrity quotes about one another, with photos to go with, so I offer up some more of them for your reading pleasure as I bask in the sun and surf of New Smyrna Island. I'll be back soon with more TV & movie foolishness!
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| "I got to really like the guy. A lot of people told me that I wouldn't like him, but I liked him. And he tried very hard. I mean Will Penny (1967) is far and away the best thing he's ever done." - BRUCE DERN on CHARLTON HESTON |
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| "Hitch relished scaring me. When we were making Psycho (1960), he experimented with the mother's corpse, using me as his gauge. I would return from lunch, open the door to the dressing room and propped in my chair would be this hideous monstrosity. The horror in my scream, registered on his Richter scale, decided which dummy he'd use as Madame." - JANET LEIGH on ALFRED HITCHCOCK |
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| "If you argue with him on something, he wants his point and he wants his way. Finally, if you say, 'All right, we'll do it your way,' he'll say, 'No-I don't want to do it my way until you like doing it my way.' It's not enough to give in to him, you have to like what he wants, too!" - TERI GARR on DUSTIN HOFFMAN (regarding Tootsie, 1982) |
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| "She was intelligent and not at all like the dumb blondes she so often depicted... She didn't give a damn where the camera was placed, how she was made to look, or about being a star. She just played the scene- acted with, not at. She was one of the nicest people I ever met." - JACK LEMMON on JUDY HOLLIDAY (her costar in It Should Happen to You and Phffft!, both 1954) |
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| "It's not enough just to get laughs. The audience has to love you, and Bob gets love as well as laughs from his audiences." - JACK BENNY on BOB HOPE |
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| "Bob Hope will go to the opening of a phone booth in a gas station in Anaheim, provided they have a camera and three people there. He must be a man who has an ever-crumbling estimation of himself. He's like a junkie- an applause junkie. Christ, instead of growing old gracefully or doing something with his money, be helpful, all he does is have an anniversary with the President looking on. He's a pathetic guy." - MARLON BRANDO on BOB HOPE |
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| "Miriam Hopkins and I didn't exactly get on. I mean, she was murder! Her great tragedy was jealousy. Oh boy! There was a scene in that movie [Old Acquaintance, 1943] where I have to shake the daylights out of her. And I was really ready for that scene. As I walked on to the stage one of the technicians whispered in my ear, 'Let her have it!'" - BETTE DAVIS on MIRIAM HOPKINS |
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| "Leslie Howard was a darling flirt. He'd be caressing your eyes and have his hand on someone else's leg at the same time. He was adorable. He was a little devil and just wanted his hands on every woman around...He just loved ladies." - JOAN BLONDELL on LESLIE HOWARD (costars in Stand-In, 1937) |
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| "I thought I saw something. So I arranged to meet him, and he seemed to be not too much to the eye, except very handsome. But the camera sees with its own eye... I put him into Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952.) Within a very few years he became a number one box-office star in America." - Director DOUGLAS SIRK on ROCK HUDSON |
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| "Also talented, but primarily a character actor-yet always used as a leading man because he's so pretty. I've seen him do character parts in which he's really great. But as a leading man he tightens up. Mostly he turned to character work in American television when his Hollywood career started going sour. Then he played the roles of psychotic killers and so forth, and his talent became clear." - Director SIDNEY LUMET on TAB HUNTER (who Lumet directed in Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, 1958, and That Kind of Woman, 1959) |
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| "I do hope that some of them will stop shedding their clothes at every opportunity. It is so unnecessary for an actress like, say, Glenda Jackson. If she was a ravishing a ravishing young beauty..." - Director GEORGE CUKOR on GLENDA JACKSON |
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| "Oh, everyone is sick to death of that one [The Blue Angel, 1930.] And I thought that Jannings was just awful in it. Such a ham" - MARLENE DIETRICH on EMIL JANNINGS |
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| "Fred could never do the lifts Gene did, and never wanted to. I'd say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on screen. Each has a distinctive style. Each is a joy to work with. But it's like comparing apples to oranges. They're both delicious." - CYD CHARISSE on FRED ASTAIRE and GENE KELLY |
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| "John Wayne was a great star. But he always played Wayne. Anything else he didn't regard as manly. Now someone like Burt Lancaster is just the opposite. Living proof that you can be a sensitive actor and macho at the same time." - Kirk Douglas on seven-time costar BURT LANCASTER and JOHN WAYNE (with whom he worked three times.) |
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| "Scarlett was mine at that point. Then Charlie [Chaplin] gave a luncheon party and David O. Selznick brought the Oliviers. As as soon as I saw the way David was looking at Vivien I knew that Scarlett was mine no longer." - PAULETTE GODDARD on VIVIEN LEIGH regarding Gone With the Wind (1939) |
4 comments:
Poseidon, Thanks for leaving us with these delicious quotes and I hope you brought sun block. It ended with a shudder as I think GWTW would have been a lot less enjoyable with Paulette as Scarlett. I am having a mental revision of that movie these days as the racism has always been so cringey. I have to watch it as a product of it's time.
Janet Leigh was always such a good sport about "Psycho". I guess you never know what movie will define your career(hello Mommie Dearest)but she never seemed to mind that people talked mostly about that one. That dummy is scary, never paid it much attention before, I guess Norman put a wig on it to make it more alive? yuck.
Love the Judy Holliday story, she did seem lovely. Marlon Brando, so mean! I thought everyone loved Bob Hope. Though Joan Rivers killed me when she said after he died "at least now his wife knows where he is". And btw Dean Martin has to be kind of old in that pic but looks hot to me. "Old Acquaintance" has my favorite shaking scene committed to film. I can watch it over and over. I love this quote from Bette. All good stuff!
Loved Brando's remarks about Hope. Ironically, they would have carried more weight uttered by someone other than Brando whose life literally collapsed under the weight of his myriad of issues. Still, I will always adore Brando for the body that wouldn't quit in "Streetcar."
I already loved Douglas and hearing his generous remarks about longtime friend, Lancaster, was just what the doctor ordered.
I had heard Cukor was bitchy, but his remarks about Glenda Jackson were unworthy of him. Then again, I would expect no less from someone who could not love Butterfly McQueen. How could anyone not love Butterfly McQueen?
***Deep Sigh*** Rock Hudson. Another lovely who somehow escaped being a centerfold in Physique Pictorial back in the day.
Bob Hope enjoyed a "beloved" reputation for pretty much all of his long life. But even toward the end, the other side of his rep (womanizer, mainly; reactionary politics and cheapskate were no secret) was coming out...
Mainly, I want to say, enjoy a well-deserved break, Poseidon!
We appreciate your work here : )
Rick
Hi all! Back in one piece...
Gingerguy, all any of can do is accept art as a product of its time and realize that few things done in 1939 (or before or after) could have the foresight of a later generation. And (not that you suggested it, but) I loathe any sort of censorship that tries to redo what was done to make it "palatable" now. We need to be aware of how things were handled at that time so that people don't go around believing that the way it might be now is the way it always was. I say this because sometimes DVDs and TV airings are augmented to cover up or delete things that were initially included so that no one gets offended. It is this that I do not approve of. You are so right about Janet! She had a pretty busy, popular career, but is so heavily associated with one (somewhat later) movie! There's something about having seen "Psycho" in a grainy, cropped print on '70s TV that made it even more terrifying then than it is now on DVD! I have so much trouble thinking of Bob Hope as a ladies' man, though it's been said time and again. Although I also read one bio that had him doing men, too, including an early vaudeville partner! I think there is a GIF out there somewhere of Bette shaking the hell out of poor neurotic Miriam!
Petercox97, I also found Brando's quote amusing, sort of similar to one said one time of Cesar Romaro, a VERY frequent escort of middle-aged single actresses. It was something like, "Cesar Romero would attend the opening of an envelope..." I do think, despite the quote and Hope's glory-hogging, that he did to a lot to lift the spirits of MANY a serviceman out in the field, so there is at least that. Some folks are proud that they went on tour a time or two, but he went over and over and OVER, sometimes at perilous risk. I was taken aback by Cukor, too! I don't think Glenda Jackson (nor her body) were horrendously offensive to the point of being singled out like that. Maybe he was used to the more glamorous faces he directed in the '30s. (And, look, he was no oil paintin' himself! LOL)
Thanks, Rick! I can remember, even as a kid, sensing a slight resentment peeking though with some of Hope's gags, as if he felt he deserved more from his showbiz peers (namely the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.) He also began to seriously phone it in later in his career. Makes me want to check out more of his early work to see if I enjoy it. I have read some of his books and one of them in particular was REALLY good (I think it was "Don't Shoot! It's Only Me, Bob Hope!" or something like that.)
I had a lovely, relaxing time in Florida. Basically just enjoyed the sun and sand, the crashing of the waves, long walks, good food, appealing scenery and, yes, some drinkie-winkies. I may share a scenic photo or two in an upcoming post. Thanks!!
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