Thursday, October 12, 2017

End Quote

It's that time. We've finally burned all the way through the alphabet of the book we've been sharing with celebrity quotes about themselves and one another. We're going out with a bang this time with 20 pictures instead of the usual 12 to 15. We hope you enjoy and we'll be back soon with more classic movie and television fun.
"The closest thing we've had to me lately is John Travolta. Whether he'll want to work hard enough on his dancing I don't know. Travolta moves well, but the facts of dancing life mean that you have to work very hard to keep up to the level you're already at." - GENE KELLY "He's not a dancer. What he did in those dance scenes was very attractive but he is basically not a dancer. I was dancing like that years ago, you know. Disco is just jitterbug." - FRED ASTAIRE  Two cinematic dance legends weighing in on JOHN TRAVOLTA.
"Maybe the major thing is how sensual he is. And how sexy, too. The sensitivity and the sexuality are very strong. It's as if he has every dichotomy-masculinity, femininity, refinement, crudity. You see him, you fall in love a little bit." LILY TOMLIN waxing enthusiastically about her costar JOHN TRAVOLTA in the decidedly un-sexy Moment By Moment.
"That Valentino was certainly a very splendid fellow. And his unique glamour was not entirely due to the fact that he was unhampered by banal dialogue. Modern dialogue is not always banal, and the screen hero who could match Valentino's posturing technique with an equally polished vocal technique has a perfectly fair chance of becoming his romantic peer. It was his magnetism and dignity that assured him a peak of magnificent isolation." - JAMES MASON on RUDOLPH VALENTINO
"Jon agonizes his way toward every decision; what his next movie should be; whether to go out to lunch. He's a good, tortured person." - JANE FONDA on her Coming Home costar JON VOIGHT (the film having netted them each both a Golden Globe and an Oscar.)
"The experience of working with him was unlike any I had in more than 50 pictures. He was so painstaking and slow that I would lose all sense of time, hypnotized by the man's relentless perfectionism." - GLORIA SWANSON on her Queen Kelly director (and, later, Sunset Boulevard costar) ERICH VON STROHEIM
"He was the unqualified front runner-the most generous man I've ever met. And he had such a lovely light sense of humor. I consider it a privilege to have worked with him." - JULIE ANDREWS on her Hawaii costar MAX VON SYDOW
"He wasn't as clever as Spence, but a brilliant actor nonetheless, bigger than life in his performance-and often when he didn't have to be." - KATHARINE HEPBURN on her Rooster Cogburn costar JOHN WAYNE
"I certainly would have given anything to have worked with John Wayne. He's the most attractive man who ever walked the earth, I think." BETTE DAVIS on JOHN WAYNE in 1974.
"I could never feel much sympathy for Cheeta the chimp-who was really rather queer, I'm afraid. Didn't like the girls at all. But he adored Johnny Weismuller and was terribly jealous of me." - MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN on CHEETA and JOHNNY WEISMULLER, her costars in several Tarzan movies.
"I have never met anyone so badly behaved." - JAMES MASON on The Last of Sheila costar RAQUEL WELCH
"Tuesday was a dream to work with. She seemed to have an instinct for how to act a scene. I also noticed she seemed to be heading for serious trouble. ...it was apparent stardom was well within her grasp, but she conducted herself in a manner that made you think she was just another Hollywood joke-and I followed her career-it was as though she were some dizzy blonde who had no idea about what she was doing." - DANNY KAYE on his The Five Pennies costar TUESDAY WELD
"You cannot battle an elephant. Orson was such a big man in every way that no one could stand up to him. On the first day...at 4 o'clock, he strode in, followed by his agent, a dwarf, his valet and a whole entourage. Approaching us, he said, 'All right, everybody turn to page eight.' And we did it (though he was not the director.)" - JOAN FONTAINE on her Jane Eyre costar ORSON WELLES
"During The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles, drunk on Joe Cotton's Machiavellian martinis, secretly sending his chauffeur homes and pleading no transport, would I drive him? Gad, what a drive. I prayed for a policeman. Six feet four, 250 pounds and what seemed like six hands in my shirt." - ANNE BAXTER on costar ORSON WELLES
"I've learned everything from her. Well, not everything, but almost everything. She knows so much. Her insight is so true. Her timing so perfect, her grasp of a situation so right." - CARY GRANT on MAE WEST, with whom he worked in I'm No Angel and She Done Him Wrong.
"We went down to her house for rehearsals... And she was always in a sort of pale beige negligee with a train about twenty feet long. That's how we rehearsed every day. And when we'd stop for a breather, we'd sit and talk. She was just plain and simply a sweet old lady, who told me marvelous stories about her life." - ROCK HUDSON on MAE WEST, with whom he performed "Baby, It's Cold Outside" at the 30th Annual Academy Awards ceremony in 1958 (when West was 65.)
"They [the acting school] were trying to mold Robin into a standardized Juilliard product-Kevin Kline is the perfect example of it-but Robin was too special, too original, to be that." - CHRISTOPHER REEVE on ROBIN WILLIAMS
"Look, Debra is 21 years younger than I am. She has very different interests and different ways of looking at life. Just because you work intimately with someone for three or four months on a film doesn't mean there's any breeding ground for friendship. I don't think there was much of one. She loved to sit in her trailer in her combat boots and miniskirt, listening to real loud rock 'n' roll. Right there, I mean, what am I going to do that for?" - SHIRLEY MACLAINE on her Terms of Endearment costar DEBRA WINGER
"Joanne always made it her business to hold back her career while Paul was on the up and up. And that girl is one helluva talented actress. But she knew what side her bread was buttered on and let Paul become the superstar of the family. The result? They're still happily married today." - SHELLEY WINTERS on JOANNE WOODWARD (and PAUL NEWMAN)
"She was and is the only actress I really dislike. She was sickeningly sweet, a pure phony. Her two faces sent me home angry and crying several times." - VIRGINIA FIELD on LORETTA YOUNG, with whom she worked in Ladies in Love, Eternally Yours and The Perfect Marriage.
"If you want a place in the sun you have to expect a few blisters." - LORETTA YOUNG

3 comments:

Scooter said...

I thought Shelley Winters' comment on the Newman-Woodward marriage was interesting and something I had never quite considered before. I'll be the "Star is Born" dynamic still plays out in modern Hollywood.

Gingerguy said...

Poseidon, you went out with a bang on this topic. On Travolta, I think Gene Kelly's assessment is so true about maintenance, but feel like Fred Astaire is splitting hairs. Lily Tomlin and John had no chemistry in that dreadful movie but maybe she thought of him that way in real life. They also look like brother and sister, his real Sister Ellen was on sitcoms ("Makin' It"?).
Nice from Julie Andrews and showed a different side of Max, I think of him as Death or an Exorcist.
I hate John Wayne but love the Bette quote and that picture is to die for.
Poor Anne Baxter, Orson sounds like Harvey Weinstein!
Ouch, Rock on Mae West. I bet she was a hoot, but suddenly 65 doesn't seem that old to me now. And that is the first bad thing I have read about Loretta Young. Juicy, all I ever heard about was a corny swear word jar you had to put money in if you cursed around her.

Poseidon3 said...

Yes, Scooter. I agree. On a separate note, I thought that Paul looked STUNNING in that photo... The face, the eyes... yum!

Gingerguy, "Moment by Moment" is just screamingly bad, but I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. Somehow one of my most memorable moments (by moments) of the movie is the amusing way that Lil gets into her hot tub at one point... awkwardly lowering and turning herself. Cracks me up just to think of it now! I agree completely about Julie/Max. To me, he's the terrifying assassin of "Three Days of the Condor!" And Mae was an "old lady" in 1958, but made movies into the early-1970s! LOL Of course, my FAVE anecdote about Loretta (may or may not be true) was when she tried to collect $0.25 off someone for swearing and the person said, "Here's a dollar. Now go fuck yourself!" LOLOL