YUL BRYNNER (1920 – 85)        

‘I had a rule when I was doing ‘The King and I’, that I never allowed anybody backstage, except after the show, because all this work went into creating an illusion and would be destroyed by a visit backstage… And one day, during the intermission, the stage doorman came in and said, ‘I don’t know what to do, Mr. Brynner; there’s a man who says he’s Cecil B. DeMille and he has to see you immediately about a matter of life and death.’ I said, ‘Well, show him in, if he doesn’t mind I’m almost stark naked, but I don’t mind. Ask him in.’ So, he came in, shook my hand and said, ‘Mr. Brynner, how’d you like to make a picture that your grand-children will see in theatres around the world?’ I said, ‘I think I’d like that.’ He said, ‘Then will you play Rameses in The Ten Commandments for me?’ I said, ‘Certainly’. We shook hands, and that was the deal. It was as firm a deal as I’ve ever had in this business. I was the first actor engaged for the movie.’

[Recorded in January 1985, after he was diagnosed with lung cancer, these are the words Yul spoke in TV ads against cigarette smoking following his death]: ‘Now that I’m gone, I tell you: Don’t smoke, whatever you do, just don’t smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn’t be talking about any cancer. I’m convinced of that.’

RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH (1923 – 2014)                      

‘I want to make a film about Tom Paine. But nobody wants to make it. Nobody. Because it’s politics; it’s period; it doesn’t have any of the things that now are supposedly pre-requisites to commercial success… If you’re not prepared or interested in science fiction, which in terms of movies I’m not, if you’re not interested in terms of all the CGI stuff that you can now do in the cinema… if you’re not prepared to indulge in the pornography of violence or overt sexual matter, it’s very, very difficult. It is hard to raise the money… And if you don’t have something which they believe will reach an enormous audience, then they won’t go for it. And so you fall out.’

PHIL HARTMAN (1948-98)           

[Hartman commented on the ruining of the career of actor Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman), after he was arrested for indecent exposure in 1991]: ‘The loss he took for what allegedly happened is the equivalent of somebody getting twenty years for having a joint in their wallet.’

[On why he left Saturday Night Live]: ‘The shows are getting less sophisticated. There’s less political satire. The younger audience loves Adam Sandler. He appeals less to the intellect and more to that stand-up sensibility of ‘Let’s go out there and be insane.’ I like Adam Sandler, but that’s not my kind of comedy, so, yeah, in a way it makes me feel like, ‘Well, it’s time for me to go.’

NICOLAS CAGE (1964 – )                    With wife Lisa Marie Presley

[When asked about his twenty-one month marriage to Elvis’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley, he cited one of the reasons they divorced was because her first husband, Danny Keough, lived in a guest-house on their property, adding]: ‘I’m sad about this, but we shouldn’t have been married in the first place.’

‘I was being stalked by a mime – silent, but maybe deadly. Somehow, this mime would appear on the set of Bringing out the Dead (1999), and start doing strange things. I have no idea how it got past security. Finally, the producers took some action and I haven’t seen the mime since. But it was definitely unsettling.’

[Cage once woke up in his house at Orange County in the middle of the night to find a naked man eating a fudge-sicle in front of his bed. The man was arrested but Nicolas pressed no charges]: ‘That was horrible. I mean, that’s as bad as it gets: 2am and there’s a naked man standing in front of your bed watching you sleep. It’s not funny, but somehow people find it amusing.’

‘I remember my prom was a complete disaster. I used bonds my grandmother had given me to rent a tuxedo and a limousine, so I could go to the prom with this beautiful girl. And at the end of the night I went to kiss her and she responded. I was so nervous that my stomach got really nauseous and I said, ‘Excuse me’, and just threw up on the street, all over my shoes and my rented tux. The limo driver wouldn’t let me in the car. He split and I had to walk home. That was my prom night.’

EMILY BLUNT (1983 – )                

[On accepting her Golden Globe in 2007 without a written speech]: ‘The Globes night was a frenzy. I hadn’t written anything. I looked down at the audience and Jack Nicholson was staring up at me and I couldn’t even remember what my bloody name was. So I have learnt my lesson!’

[On playing her second lesbian character in a film]: ‘I’m going to become a gay icon. Have I ever flirted with that side? No, never, but I do remember girl crushes on other girls in my year group at school. There are these girls who are magnetic and beautiful and soooo cool. You just feel yourself shrink in their presence.’

HORST BUCHHOLZ (1933 – 2003)           

[The German actor who played Chico in the 1960 western classic The Magnificent Seven spoke six languages fluently – English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. He was married to beautiful actress Myriam Bru for 44 years until his death from pneumonia in 2003. He had two children with her. When asked about his sexuality, he had this to say]: ‘Yes, I also love men. Ultimately, I’m bisexual…I have always lived my life the way I wanted.’

JAY NORTH (1951 – )                      

[The former child-star who achieved phenomenal success and popularity playing the title character in the fifties-sixties television series Dennis the Menace (1959-63), expressed his feelings about Hollywood after the series was cancelled and he was thrown on the teenager scrap-heap]: ‘Goodbye, Hollywood. Thanks for nothing.’