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’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 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.