“I think anybody who has been in the theater, prefers it. Television is a... factory. You turn out things on a revolving assembly line. You don't have time to perfect anything in television.”
“I've never been bored in my life working. A lot of people get bored after five minutes. They want to go home and pick up their check. That's never been the case for me. I'm always the first to arrive and the last to leave because I truly enjoy what I'm doing. That's why I've been in show business for so long-I love it!”
“Radio wasn't so bad because you didn't have to memorize the lines. But you did have to do everything because your own character was in your voice-that took a little doing. Most people thought that if you could speak English or read then you could be a radio actor. Well, that wasn't so. You had to put a great deal into your reading to convince somebody who was just listening that a certain character is speaking.”
“Lucille didn't care about messing herself up. A lot of stars of her stature wouldn't do physical comedy because they were afraid they'd get their hair messed up or they'd look bad. I remember once she fell into a vat of green dye. She came out with not only her hair green but everything was green!”
“The last thing in the world I should have done was go into the theater because was inordinately shy as a young man. I couldn't open my mouth. At a party, I was the one stuck up against the wall. I was embarrassed about talking. I felt that I couldn't talk well.”
“I've had high regard for a great many actors. I started out as a serious actor. I didn't start out as a comic actor at all. That just developed because I happened to be louder than anyone else. If they wanted a blowhard character, they called on me. I've had innumerable people that I've respected and venerated.”