ANGIE DICKINSON (1931 – ) 

‘When I started shooting Police Woman (1974), someone asked me if I had ever played a sleuth before. I said, ‘Yes, many times.’ I thought they were asking me if I had ever played a slut. I didn’t know what a sleuth was.’

‘My mother was against me being an actress – until I introduced her to Frank Sinatra.’

[On meeting Bill Clinton at a Democratic fundraiser]: ‘I was standing next to Suzanne Pleshette on the receiving line, and as he got closer, I said to her, ‘My God, I’m beginning to sweat!’ And then he was in front of me, bigger than life, and so great-looking. He said, when he met me, ‘At last!’

Presidents Bill Clinton & John F Kennedy

[The acknowledged former lover of President John F. Kennedy has since stated]: ‘No question – the more powerful men are, the sexier they are.’

ROSIE O’DONNELL (1962 – )                                          

‘Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.’

Jacqueline Bisset in The Deep (1977)

[Rosie has stated that she realized she was a lesbian after seeing Jacqueline Bisset in the 1977 film The Deep]: ‘Unfortunately, in the gay community, often-times people that get the most attention are the most flamboyant and loud. And that’s not to dismiss them, because drag queens and, you know, leather motorcycle women, they have their place in the gay community as well. But they’re not – they don’t define the gay community by any stretch of the imagination.’

ROBERT GOULET (1933-2007)               

[No-one could ever accuse singer/actor Robert Goulet of being devoid of a sense of humour. When he had surgery on a split femur in the mid-1990s, he asked the surgeon if he would be able to dance after the operation. The doctor said yes, he most certainly would. Goulet’s reply was typical of the man]: ‘That’s good, because I couldn’t dance before.’

ROBERT BLAKE (1933 – )                        

[The former child star who played Baretta in the TV series of that name in 1975, was found not guilty of murdering his wife as she sat waiting for him outside a restaurant in May 2001. He spoke of his horrendous childhood]: ‘Being locked in the closets, and beat up, and burned, and sexual stuff and to come out from under it, I mean, it’s lovely. I mean, most people like me end up on death row, or in graveyards, or in prison.’

ROBERT REDFORD (1936 – )                  

[On refusing the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967), the role that made 29 year-old Dustin Hoffman a star seven years before Redford obtained super-star status himself]: ‘I never did look like a twenty-one year-old just out of college who’d never been laid.’

Michelle Pfeiffer as Miss Orange County

[On Michelle Pfeiffer]: ‘She has a great sense of humour. There’s a scene after the first time we have a tryst in Up Close & Personal (1996); she says goodbye to me and hands me a gift. I was just supposed to look at it and smile. I unwrapped it and inside was a picture frame, and Michelle had slipped in a photo of herself in a bathing suit winning the Miss Orange County beauty contest. I still have the photo.’

[On the death of his long-time friend Paul Newman]: ‘I have lost a real friend. My life – and this country – is better for his being in it.’

Director George Roy Hill

[On the directors who have had the most impact on him]: ‘Sydney Pollack and George Roy Hill. It makes me sad when I see certain directors getting a lot of attention, in some cases too much attention, when Roy was one of those who should have got that attention and didn’t. If you read his biography he rises to the top, when you think about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973) he never got enough credit for those films.’

GEORGE PEPPARD (1928 – 94)                         

[Peppard had acquired a reputation as a notoriously bad-tempered drinker before he turned down the Blake Carrington lead role in Dynasty (1981). Having shot several scenes he clashed with producers, arguing that the Carrington character was too similar to that of J.R. Ewing of Dallas (1978). He was fired after three weeks and the role was recast with John Forsythe. All George’s scenes were reshot.]: ‘Everyone thought I was crazed because of my career being in the dumps at the moment. I’m so glad I wasn’t drinking. I bet a lot of people thought when I did certain things, I’d been drinking, and now they found out it wasn’t the booze at all, it was me.’

TOM HULCE (1953 – )                                           

[In 2008, in an interview with ‘Seattle Gay News’, the former star of Amadeus (1984) refuted the false rumours that he had ever been married to a woman and/or had a child with her]: ‘that information – having a wife and child – is false…I’m comfortable being among the lists [of gay actors], although I stopped acting about ten years ago.’

RACHEL GRIFFITHS (1968 – )                            

[Melbourne-born actress Rachel Griffiths once said to actor Bill Hunter, during a bout of insecurity on the set of Muriel’s Wedding (1994), ‘I’m kinda waiting for them to find out that I can’t act.’ He encouraged her with his reply: ‘Rachel, I’ve been waiting forty years, and they never find out!’

[When asked by the media why she had ran topless through Melbourne’s Crown Casino on its opening night in protest, she candidly replied: ‘If I didn’t flash my tits, you wouldn’t have put me in the paper!’

RICHARD JAECKEL (1926-97)              

[On being diagnosed with melanoma cancer]: ‘I know people are pulling for me to beat this thing, but let them have a glass at the bar for me and let it go at that. I’ve put fifty years in movies and my wife and I have travelled all over the world. I’ve been very lucky. We’re not part of the Hollywood social scene. And we don’t entertain much. We went through all that early in the going and I found that we just spent a lot of money doing absolutely nothing.’