Even in the days when they did Othello, you didn’t necessarily have to be black to play Othello. You wore the makeup.
There were some times when we did the winter scenes in the summer, and I had to wear that silly fur coat. Oh, my Lord! I was perspiring!
There’s this Lebanese lady I dearly loved who raised 13 children in Toledo, and she retired in Phoenix. She said, I get up every morning and say, Thank you, God. I do the same thing now.
I was born in 1934 and I didn’t make my first movie until 1954.
Usually you’d do the summer scenes in the winter. So you’re out there with a T-shirt and hope nobody sees your air that you’re breathing out. We put ice cubes in our mouth to stop that from happening.
You accumulate a great deal of acquaintances and friendships over the years, and you can’t always spend as much time as you would like.
When I did a Love Boat, it would go to so many different countries, and I would travel there and get this incredible response!
Sometimes you get a call and an uncle passed away that you really liked, or a cousin or somebody else. So each day becomes a little more precious then the day that preceded it.
Sometimes I want to go into Saturday Night Live and rewrite some of the sketches because they’re really not that good.
One of the terrible things about doing movies is that the writers never consider the temperature outside.
Canada has given us John Candy and Martin Short and Bill Shatner and Lord knows how many other wonderful performers.
I tried to make it a simple as possible for people so they could pronounce my name.
When the show is over we still have to pay our rent, we have to buy food. We have to do all the same things that you do.
I’d like to create a role on Broadway. That would really heighten my senses.
I’ve been out on the book tour going through Pittsburgh, St Louis and Cleveland, Dayton and Orlando, Raleigh-Durham. I sign many books for people.
If you do eight shows a week it’s just too difficult to try to put everything that you can together.
If you get a show named after you, and then play another character, that’s fine. But if you do a show that’s an ensemble show like MASH, then you’re in trouble.
It makes you a better person to know where you came from, because whereever you go, there is somebody in some town, city, hamlet, whatever, that has the same dreams you have.
It makes you famous, you get money from it, you go on and do the best you can, but it really is dreadful that people don’t know your name.
Jewish people have given me all the breaks you can possibly have. But of course, it’s wonderful when you feel that your own nationality has made it. It gives you hopes.
They sometimes beat things into the ground. They don’t know when to get out of a situation. They think the more you pound the nail into the ground, the funnier it gets. That’s not necessarily true.