CHRISTOPHER REEVE:              

[On being visited in hospital by comedian Robin Williams, shortly after the horse-riding accident that left Reeve permanently paralyzed]: ‘There was this guy wearing a blue scrub hat and a yellow gown and with a Russian accident, being some insane Russian doctor…I laughed for the first time, and I knew that life was going to be okay. Thank God I wear a seat-belt in this chair, because I would have fallen out laughing. In the middle of a tragedy like this, in the middle of a depression, you can still experience genuine joy and laughter and love. And anyone who says life’s not worth living is totally wrong, totally wrong.’

INGER STEVENS:              

[A few years before taking her own life in 1970 at the age of just 35, Inger spoke of fame and its impact on her private life and overall chances of finding happiness] ‘A career, no matter how successful, can’t put its arms around you. You end up being like Grand Central Station, with people just coming and going. And there you are – left all alone. Once I felt that I was one person at home, and the minute I stepped out the door I had to be somebody else. I had a terrific insecurity and extreme shyness that I covered up with coldness. Everybody thought I was a snob. I was really just plain scared.’

 ROD TAYLOR:                               

[Rod discussed comparisons drawn between himself and fellow Aussie actor Errol Flynn in an interview on 60 Minutes in 1960] ‘I loved what he represented on the screen, but his private life left something to be desired, really. And people kind of took it for granted that I was just as much of a reprobate as he was, and that disappointed me a little. And they also expected me to be as tall and good-looking and dashing, which I wasn’t – so that pissed me off, to have to live up to that, too.’

 JOHNNY DEPP:                              

[On knowing Vincent Price] ‘One of the most incredible moments I’ve ever had was sitting in Vincent’s trailer…I was showing him this first-edition book I have of the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, with really amazing illustrations. Vincent was going nuts over the drawings, and he started talking about The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Then he closed the book and began to recite it to me in this beautiful voice, filling the room with huge sounds. Such passion! I looked in the book later, and it was verbatim. Word perfect. It was a great moment. I’ll never forget that.’

[On Gene Wilder’s comment on the remake of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)] ‘Hearing about that was disappointing, but I can understand where he’s coming from, I guess. The one thing I didn’t understand was that apparently he was quoted as saying, ‘Well, they just did this for money’. Well, hey, man, where have you been? When didn’t they ever do anything for money? Nobody’s ever made a film in the history of the cinema where they weren’t expecting some return on their dough.’

[On director Tim Burton] ‘He can ask me everything. If he wants me to have sex with an aardvark in one of his next movies, then I will do that.’

[Regarding Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)] ‘It was mentioned that they were considering a movie based on the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ride, and I said I was in. There was no screenplay, no director, nothing. For some unknown reason, I just said I was in.’ [Sometime later he added] ‘I only wanted to be in a movie that my kids could see.’

‘I’d been in high school three years…I had, like, eight credits. I was in my third year of high school and I didn’t want to be there. I was bored out of my mind and I hated it. I hung around with bad crowds. We used to break and enter places. We’d break into the school and destroy a room or something. I used to steal things from stores.’

[About one of his old teachers asking for an autograph] ‘I mean, what was I supposed to say? He’d failed me. I remember one time this teacher yelled at me so heavily in front of the entire class. He didn’t have any time for me then, and now, all of a sudden, he wants my autograph? They all thought I was going to end up a drug addict, in jail.’

‘I started smoking at 12, lost my virginity at 13 and did every kind of drug there was by 14. Pretty much any drug you can name, I’ve done it. I wouldn’t say I was bad or malicious, I was just curious. I certainly had my little experiences with drugs. Eventually, you see where that’s headed and you get out.’

‘We used to sell ads over the telephone. Telemarketing. We got $100 a week. We had to rip people off. We’d tell them they’d been chosen by so-and-so in their area to receive a grandfather clock. They would order $500 worth of these fucking things and we would send them a cheap grandfather clock. It was horrible.’

‘I’ve gotten weird letters, suicide letters; girls threatening to jump if I don’t get in touch with them. So you think, ‘This is bullshit’, but then you think, ‘What if it’s not?’ Who wants to take that chance? I write them back, tell them to hang in there – if things are that bad they have to get better. But I’m not altogether stable myself, so who am I to give advice?’

‘I pray on airplanes. I get instant religion during take-off, then, when we’re safely in the air, I sit there thinking about the fact that any little thing that goes wrong could send us crashing to the ground.’

‘If Donald Trump is elected President of the United States, in a kind of historical way it’s exciting because we will see the actual last President of the United States. When was the last time an actor assassinated a President? It has been a while, and maybe it’s time.’