ROB LOWE (1964 – )                                  

‘When I was young and crazy, I was young and crazy. It can be hard enough just to be in your teens and twenties. Then add fame, money, access, and every single person telling you that you’re the greatest person who ever was, and it can be a recipe for disaster. Some people literally don’t survive it.’

[2019): ‘Honestly, one of the great traumatic experiences of my life was watching Prince William lose his hair! He’s going to be the fucking King of England! There’s a pill [to combat hair loss]…The first glimmer that a single hair of mine was going to fall out, I was having stuff mainlined into my fucking veins. And that’s what I did for the next thirty years.’

MELISSA GILBERT (1964 – )                  

Melissa & Michael Landon – Little House on the Prairie

[On her on and off-screen chemistry with her on-screen father, Michael Landon, in the hit TV series Little House on the Prairie (1974)]: ‘He was very much like a ‘second father’ to me. My own father passed away when I was eleven, so, without really officially announcing it, Michael really stepped in. I wanted him to be my father substitute. I loved that man and I loved the way I always felt safe, crying with him. Now, granted, it was on film. But generally, I was crying about what was going on with me for real when I was with him. And he was always there to hold me. That’s the only time I let that stuff out. So, he was there in most of these scenes, comforting me. It was sort of a father/daughter relationship in my eyes.’

TOMMY RETTIG (1941-96)                     

‘When I found out it was my last season on Lassie I was ecstatic. I had gotten to the point where I really resented not being able to go out except on Saturday nights. Of course, when I did date girls their parents always trusted me because of my goody-goody TV image. The fools!’

JADA PINKETT SMITH (1971 – )            

[The wife of superstar Will Smith spoke of first meeting rapper/actor Tupac Shakur]: ‘One of the things that’s very interesting, that I’ve never really said before, is that when I first met ‘Pac’, when we first met, I was a drug dealer.’

SAM ROCKWELL (1968 – )                      

[On why he was fired from G.I. Jane (1997)]: ‘I gave them no alternative, because I didn’t want to learn how to scuba-dive. I wouldn’t mind learning in the Bahamas, but I didn’t want to learn at three o’clock in the morning.’

‘When I took acting classes and being drunk was the assigned impediment of the day, a lot of people would go out the night before and get drunk. That’s not research! Research is going to a bar…and drinking coffee.’

JEFF GOLDBLUM (1952 – )                                 

Jeff & Laura Dern

[Jeff appeared opposite his then-girlfriend (later wife) Geena Davis in The Fly (1986), then, in 1993 he played opposite his future girlfriend Laura Dern in Jurassic Park. He spoke of his attraction to Miss Dern]: ‘Well, you know, I’m very easily stirred. And she’s a remarkable woman. So I was stuck with that from the beginning. But it wasn’t until the film was over that we formed an alliance. I had been discreetly casting glances across the dinosaur. It’s mysterious what attracts you to a person.’

VANESSA REDGRAVE (1937 – )            

[Regarding her health]: ‘I’m happy to tell you about it, though I’m irritated to be shown to be so stupid. But there you are, it’s the smoking that did it. My lungs are shattered, about thirty per cent capacity if I don’t smoke. Which of course I don’t anymore, though I was horrified to learn from my doctor that there are people with this diagnosis who still do.’ 

‘America is ‘gangsterism’ for the private profit of the few.’

HUGH LAURIE (1959 – )                           

[The star of the hit TV series House (2004), Hugh Laurie, an Englishman not an American, commented on his participation [for Cambridge] in an ‘Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race. Oddly enough, he was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire and educated at Eton and Cambridge]: ‘The year was 1980, I was #4 in this particular encounter, and the result was a loss by Cambridge by a distance of five feet, which is something which I will carry to my grave…in fact, I really shouldn’t say this, because I still to this day wouldn’t want to give any pleasure or satisfaction to the opposing crew. But yes, it’s true, it was a very bitter defeat.’ 

MARTIN SHEEN (1940 – ) – with his son Charlie                          

[Regarding his wayward son Charlie Sheen]: ‘No father could ever be prouder of his son. I hold Charlie’s accomplishments dearer than my own. He has been through so much and overcome so much more. Even if he weren’t my son he’d still be my best friend.’

‘I adored Mr. Clinton. And he was a fan of The West Wing (1999). For a while, we were given carte blanche at the White House, which ended when Bush [George W] got in – ended for me anyway. When the new administration got into power, all my ‘West Wing’ colleagues were invited there to meet their counterparts. All except me. I was very relieved about that.’

NASTASSJA KINSKI (1961 – )                 

[In 1999, she denied that her father had molested her as a child, but he had abused her ‘in other ways’; stating that he attempted with her, but had not succeeded as he had with her half-sister Pola Kinski]: ‘He was no father. Ninety-nine percent of the time I was terrified of him. He was so unpredictable that the family lived in constant terror. I would do anything to put him behind bars for life. I am glad he is no longer alive.’

[Nastassja spoke of the nudity she endured at thirteen and fourteen in her early films]: ‘If I had had somebody to protect me, or if I had felt more secure about myself, I would not have accepted certain things. Nudity things. And inside it was just tearing me apart.’