At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.
I’ve been in the movies for 50 years, I’ve made 130 some-odd movies.
That so many people respond to me is fabulous. It is like having a kind of Alzheimer’s disease, where everyone knows you and you don’t know anyone.
Joe: We can’t just walk out on her without saying goodbye. Jerry: What? Since when? You usually walk out and leave ’em with nothing but a kick in the teeth. Joe: That’s when I was a saxophone player. Now I’m a millionaire.
I enlisted when I was a boy. The Navy looked after me like my mother. It fed me, took care of me and gave me wonderful opportunities.
I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific.
I’ve just opened a show in Florida, although I also have many pieces on display around the world.
The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.
Even on a personal note, my dressing table downstairs is crowded with things, like a mini landscape. It’s a city with buildings and towers and roads. There’s a pool and a little park. When I move something around it becomes a different tableau.
I will always remember this summer day in Paris, when I was to perform a great acrobatic move. I can still see myself stepping on the ring of a packed circus along real performers.
But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.
Every movie I’ve been in has ended up on television.
Everywhere I go in the world, people know me and recognise me and really show affection for me.
I don’t know what organically grown chickens are; I’ve never seen one.
I can’t sit around and wait for the telephone to ring.
I enjoy being recognized whatever environment I’m in.
Art is an emotional experience.
Painting is much more than therapy to me its a way of life.
If you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time.
My whole world before I joined the Navy was my neighborhood in the Bronx.
We were scared. I guess when you’re in your twenties, that’s how it is. You’ve got an adult body, but you’re trying to make it work with a kid’s emotions. With Marilyn and me, it was worse. Our kid emotions didn’t even work. We’d been treated too poorly.