DIANE LADD (1935 – )                             

[Diane on actress Jean Seberg during the making of Macho Callahan (1970)]: ‘She was terribly sensitive, almost like a little girl. We shot in a village outside Mexico City one day, and they set up tables for the cast and crew to eat. These skinny dogs wandered over, and Jean started to feed them off her plate. Someone snapped that you don’t do that – not when there were people going hungry. Jean looked awfully hurt and didn’t eat for two days after that. I personally considered her a great lady and a wonderful human being. A lady of sensitive, thought-out, careful choice and depth, and select caring.’

MICHAEL KEATON (1951 – )      

[After interviewer Michael Parkinson commented on Keaton’s birth name being Michael Douglas]: ‘Yeah, I had to change my name because there were two other actors registered at Equity with that name. One of them is doing quite well from what I understand, the other is making cheap porn movies – like Basic Instinct [1992].’

[On Michelle Pfeiffer, one of his co-stars in Batman Returns (1992)]: ‘What impressed me about Michelle is that she’s a California beach chick, no elevated education, but when you’re smart you just get smarter.’

Keaton as Beetlejuice 

[Commenting in 2011, on his portrayal of the title character in Beetlejuice (1988)]: ‘I wanted him to be pure electricity; that’s why the hair just sticks out. At my house, I started creating a walk and a voice. I got some teeth. I wanted to be scary in the look and then use the voice to add a dash of goofiness that, in a way, would make it even scarier. I wanted something kind of mouldy to it, too. [Tim Burton] had the striped-suit idea and we added the big eyes. I think that movie will go forever because it’s 100% original.’

DOROTHY LAMOUR (1914-96)              

‘I made sixty motion pictures and only wore the sarong in about six pictures, but it did become a kind of trademark. And it did hinder me. They expect you to always be the young girl leaning against the palm tree. Why should you want to act?’

[On Bing Crosby]: ‘As I look back, I think he was a very shy, insecure man. The world looked upon him as one of the great talents, he just never saw himself in that light. He was very introverted off the set and it was difficult to maintain a close relationship with him.’

‘I’m no prude. I know you have to come up a little bit modern. But all this filth and homosexuality and sex and nudity today are ruining any hope of our young people having the beautiful life.’

‘Mostly [Crosby and Hope] would ad-lib, playing with the lines I’d worked so hard to memorize. The night before Road to Singapore (1940) I naively studied my script like crazy. When it came time, the ad-libs started flying every which way. I kept waiting for a cue that never came. In exasperation I said, ‘Please, guys, when can I get my line?’ They stopped dead and laughed for ten minutes.’

SHELLEY FABARES (1944 – )                             

Donna Reed

[She played Donna Reed’s daughter, Mary, on The Donna Reed Show from 1958-66]: ‘I think the years on The Donna Reed Show, the years from fourteen to nineteen, were so incredibly important. Donna Reed was simply an extraordinary woman, a woman of great strength, kindness, integrity and compassion. I am not trying to make her sound like a saint, but she had the most profound influence on me. I carry her with me today.’

MARCIA STRASSMAN (1948-2014)                   

[Lovely Marcia would succumb to breast cancer in 2014. She is best-remembered for playing Gabe Kotter’s wife Julie in the hit TV series Welcome Back, Kotter (1975)]: ‘Five women tested for it [the Julie Kotter role]. One of them was Farrah Fawcett. She was wonderful, but they said, ‘We didn’t think anyone would believe her with Gabe Kaplan.’ I said, ‘You believe me with Gabe Kaplan? Thank you very much. I did not particularly enjoy Kotter. I spent much of the four years being frustrated. I didn’t have much to do on the show. I was just there when Kotter came home at the end of the day.’

MIKE FARRELL (1939 – )                        

[Mike had numerous jobs before taking up acting and becoming known around the world as Captain BJ Hunnicutt of M.A.S.H.]: ‘I was a bouncer in a bar. That was a terrible, terrible, terrible job. And I used to be a private investigator. I’d have to find people that didn’t want to be found. I was shot at, and chased with knives. Most of the cases were really sad more than anything else.’

[At one point he presided over the largest C.I.A. station in the world, which was Honduras]: ‘I mean it’s just a pathetic thing. I laugh about it now, but Honduras was the base for the Contras against Nicaragua. Honduras was also the repository of a great number of refugees from the horror in Guatemala and the terrible brutality in El Salvador. We were there trying to deal with the needs of the people who were refugees, and who were being treated abominably by their own governments and by the United States in every way they could be.’

ETHEL MERMAN (1908-84)                    

[Twenty-two year old Ethel Merman never lacked anything in the ego department, least of all when she became an overnight sensation in 1930 performing in George Gershwin’s show ‘Girl Crazy’]: ‘In the second chorus of ‘I Got Rhythm’, I held a high C note for sixteen bars while the orchestra played the melodic line – a big, tooty thing – against the note. By the time I’d held that note for four bars, the audience was applauding. They applauded through the whole chorus and I did several encores. It seemed to do something to them. Not because it was sweet or beautiful, but because it was exciting. Few people have the ability to project a big not and hold it. It’s not just a matter of breath; it’s a matter of power in the diaphragm. I’d never trained my diaphragm, but I must have a strong one. When I finished that song, a star had been born. Me.’

‘Not to pat myself on the back, but when I do a show, the whole show revolves around me. And if I don’t show up, they can just forget it!’