WOODY HARRELSON:                                       

[Regarding a scary night in Dubrovnik] ‘These guys were coming down from the hillside. They were the toughest-looking motherfuckers you ever saw – some kind of Croatian judo gang or something – and they were coming down basically to kill me for being with these red-hot girls. They were ready to tear me apart, and it got mind-blowingly tense. But then one of these fucking guys recognizes me from American TV, so we end up going out for drinks with them. I swear if I had not been on Cheers (1982), I’d have died right there on that beach in Croatia.’

[On visiting Donald Trump during his 2004 Presidential election campaign with Jesse Ventura] ‘We went over to Trump Tower – talk about a tough dinner to get through. All he could talk about was money. After about 45 minutes, I was like ‘excuse me,’ and walked outside and fired up a joint. I was like: ‘Whoa, how am I going to get through the rest of this meal?’ I wouldn’t even have dinner with that mother, and here he is the fucking President!’

[On the arrest of Roman Polanski] ‘I have a daughter who is 13 and the thought of some guy giving her a Quaalude…then I was torn over the fact that it had been 32 years and the girl had forgiven him, so I don’t know. I do think that what he did was wrong.’

WENDY HILLER:                                                             

[On Separate Tables (1958), for which she won an Academy Award] ‘We were all English except Burt [Lancaster] and dear Rita Hayworth. She made a jolly good stab at the film, and she was a lovely creature; I have never been large but Rita was so delicately boned she made me feel like a camel! It was a very good film. I know I won an Oscar for it, but it was always the best part in the play. It’s amazing what they give these awards for. All I seemed to do was walk in and out of doors and look over my shoulder at Burt Lancaster. They cut out my two best scenes, you know. I was frightfully cross.’

JOHN GOODMAN:                                                

[On avoiding the Vietnam War draft] ‘I went to take my physical. But they measured me two inches shorter than I am. They measured me at six foot instead of six foot two. I was eleven pounds overweight for that height. They told me to lose weight and come back. By the time I was scheduled to come back, the draft was abolished.’

RUTH GORDON:                                                   

[On having her legs deliberately broken to take the bow out of them] ‘My legs were a liability, so I came to the hospital and had them broken to make them straight. Any woman who has bow-legs should be willing to suffer to have them right.’

JAMES DEAN:                                                                   

‘I think I am going to make it because on one hand I am like Clift saying help me, and on the other hand I am Brando saying, ‘Screw you!’ And somewhere in between is ‘James Dean’.’

[On being asked about his sexual orientation] ‘No, I am not a homosexual. But, I’m also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.’

REX HARRISON:                                                              

[After viewing The Sound of Music (1965)] ‘That was the only time I’ve ever rooted for the Nazis.’

Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964)

[Regarding Audrey Hepburn portraying flower-seller Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964)] ‘Eliza Doolittle is supposed to be ill at ease in European ballrooms. Bloody Audrey has never spent a day in her life out of European ballrooms!’

[On his singing in My Fair Lady] ‘Originally, I had a block about appearing in a musical. I went to a voice teacher for a while, but that did no good. My range is about one and a half notes. I ended up talking the musical numbers, which was revolutionary at the time. The lyrics are extremely intricate. They move along like a precisely acted scene. If you miss a word – heaven help you – the orchestra rattles past like an express train, and you’ve got to run like the devil to catch up.’

ANNE HECHE:                                                       

‘I told my mother at about the seventh year of therapy that I had been abused sexually by my father and she hung up the phone on me. To have gone through so much work to heal myself, and have my mother not acknowledge in any way that she was sorry for what had happened to me, broke my heart. I think my father was a sexual addict. I think he saw everybody as a sexual being. But I think [at the time he contracted AIDS] he was living a very flamboyant homosexual lifestyle. You know, at that time there were bath-houses where the whole trick was how many can you do a night. He was in complete denial until the day he died. We know he got it from his gay relationships. Absolutely. I don’t think it was just one. He was a very promiscuous man, and we knew his lifestyle then. I don’t think he was just a gay man. I think he was sexually deviant.’

GEORGE SANDERS:                                            

‘On July 3, 1906, the world was at peace. Nothing of any consequence seemed to be happening in the capital cities of any of its countries. Nothing disturbed the summer lethargy of its population. Everywhere, people dozed contentedly, unaware that an event of major importance was taking place in St. Petersburg, Russia. At number 6, Petroffski Ostroff. To Margaret and Henry Sanders, a son of dazzling beauty and infinite charm was being born. It was I.’

FLORENCE HENDERSON:                                            

[The star of TV’s The Brady Bunch was frustrated with her character in the series and pleaded with the producers to make changes] ‘I begged them to give Carol Brady a job. They wouldn’t do that. I mean, those clothes, for God’s sake, take a look at them! I didn’t choose those, please…But I said, ‘Can I just hit the kids every now and then? I mean, real life!’ They wouldn’t let me.’