JENNIFER ANISTON (1969 – )                

[On her marriage to Brad Pitt, after two years]: ‘Everybody always asks us if we’re happy. Give me a break. We’re married two years. In Hollywood years, that’s forever.’

[On her divorce from him three years later.]: ‘A man divorcing would never be accused of choosing career over children. That really pissed me off. I’ve never in my life said I don’t want to have children. I did and I do and I will! The women who inspire me are the ones who have careers and children. Why would I want to limit myself? I’ve always wanted to have children, and I would never give up that experience for a career. I want to have it all.’

[Note: In February 2022, Jennifer turned fifty-three. She has been separated from her second husband, Justin Theroux, for the past seven years and remains childless].

David Soul (L) & Paul Michael Glaser in Starsky & Hutch

PAUL MICHAEL GLASER (1943 – )                  

[Although the producers of the TV series Starsky and Hutch (1975-9) asked for a green and white Ford Camaro, but General Motors were unable to accommodate them. Instead, they were given a Red and White Ford Torana. Considering the fact that Starsky and Hutch were plainclothes cops operating undercover to unearth drug smugglers and other criminals, something other than an easily identifiable vehicle would have been preferable, according to Glaser who played Starsky in the show]: ‘The car is a character in the piece – I never liked the car, I submitted to its objectionable popularity. Secondly, I thought it was ridiculous to have two undercover policemen driving around in a striped tomato! We had a ground-breaking show with unique characters. But all people remember is that car.’

EILEEN BRENNAN (1932 – 2013)                                     

[Eileen spoke of her medication addiction after she was seriously injured in a car crash caused by a drunk driver in 1982]: ‘Everyone hits bottom their own way. Mine came through my accident, which led to my pill addiction, which led to my birth. I say birth rather than rebirth because I feel born new. I re-established a spiritual connection that is lost when you are taking any kind of drug. Strangely enough, I wouldn’t have missed my accident. It just knocks me out to say that, but I mean it.’

ANN MILLER (1923 – 2004)                                 

[In a 1979 interview]: ‘I have worked like a dog all my life, honey. Dancing, as Fred Astaire said, is next to ditch-digging. You sweat and you slave and the audience doesn’t think you have a brain in your head. Fred was a perfectionist. At rehearsal, when you thought you had got it perfect, he would say, ‘Go on, Annie, just one more time!’ What I wouldn’t give to do it just one more time.’

‘At MGM, I always played the second feminine lead. I was never the star in films. I was the brassy, good-hearted showgirl. I never really had my big moment on the screen. Broadway gave me the stardom that my soul kind of yearned for.’

AUSTIN PENDLETON (1940 – )              

[On his role as the stuttering defense counsel, John Gibbons, in My Cousin Vinny (1992)]: ‘The dirty secret in the business for years has been, I have a little trouble with speaking. I’m essentially over it, but it’s there; you don’t ever totally get rid of it. And everybody kind of understands that, and we proceed as if it weren’t true. Now I play this part and [the director] said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Furthermore, the very reason is that because you have this history, no other actor could do it as well.’ I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ So of course I did it, and it turned into this huge hit. And the result, of course, is that I couldn’t get work in the movies for three years after it…I could not get a job with anyone who had never worked with me. They would all but tell me it was because of My Cousin Vinny. I said, ‘I can get through a whole movie without stuttering.’ But they said, ‘Now the whole audience is going to want you to stutter.’

[On working with Paul Newman on Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990)]: ‘Paul Newman was the ultimate sweet fellow. I didn’t have anything opposite him in that film, but I’d known him slightly before that. He was just the nicest person you’ve ever met. He was very funny and thoughtful, and when you had a conversation with him, it was an actual conversation. He never in my presence uttered an uninteresting word. He was just fascinating; his outlook on things. And he was famously generous.’

GRAHAM GREENE (1952 – )                   

[The actor who portrayed Sioux warrior Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves (1990), was born an Oneida Indian in Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, Canada. He was once asked if he believes he has been typecast throughout his career]: ‘I’ve played all kinds of things. I played an old Jewish man in a furniture store in theatre; I played the ghost of a black transvestite…I’ve played British soldiers, I’ve played French soldiers, I’ve played New York cops, I’ve played lawyers, so…no.’

DOLORES DEL RIO (1904-83)                             

[Described by Marlene Dietrich as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’, the Mexican – born actress took Hollywood by storm in the 1920s and 1930s. She had this to say of her new home in the 1920s]: ‘Hollywood, what a place it is! It is so far from the rest of the world, so narrow. No-one thinks of anything but motion pictures or talks of anything else. And I, too, am getting like the rest. I have not read anything for a year. I do not know what is happening in the world.’

[On her transition from silent to sound films]: ‘Many big stars didn’t survive. Their voices were too high, or they didn’t speak English well enough. I survived, but it was difficult. I had to work very, very hard at my English.’

 R. LEE ERMEY (1944 -2018)

[Not surprisingly, given the roles he excelled at, R. Lee Ermey came to acting following an eleven year stint in the United States Marine Corps. He served fourteen months in Vietnam during the conflict, where he rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant. Later, he did two tours in Okinawa, Japan]: ‘Back in those days, intimidation was the greatest tool any drill instructor had. Mindless obedience is what he’s after; for that he needs absolute and total control; for that he’s gotta be intimidating.’

‘I don’t have any respect at all for the scum-bags who went to Canada to avoid the draft or to avoid doing their fair share.’