A still from The Sound of Music (1965)

MARNI NIXON (1930-2016)                      

[Marni provided the singing voice for Deborah Kerr in both The King and I (1956), and in An Affair to Remember in (1957). She dubbed Natalie Wood’s singing, (as well as Rita Moreno’s rendition of ‘Tonight’) in West Side Story (1961). She also provided Audrey Hepburn’s vocalizing in My Fair Lady (1964). Marni portrayed Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music (1965)]: ‘You always had to sign a contract that nothing would be revealed. Twentieth Century Fox, when I did The King and I, actually threatened me. They said, ‘If anybody ever knows that you did any part of the dubbing for Deborah Kerr, we’ll see to it that you won’t work in this town again.’

As Fagin in Oliver! (1968)

RON MOODY (1924-2015)             

[Moody portrayed Fagin in the film Oliver! (1968), opposite young Jack Wild who played The Artful Dodger, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Wild died relatively young at fifty-four from throat and oral cancer.]: ‘Jack really was cheated out of a great career. He was easy to work with and made you feel good. He was a professional; his performance was incredible and the film will remain a classic…He had a talent that should have developed into even more talent as he grew older. Pressure makes people react in different ways. Some people plunge in and others take the way out. Jack also had bad luck, with the fact that he got so ill. The talent was still there but it didn’t work out for him. I never thought he would ever give up. I thought he’d fought it. It’s very sad. He was a fighter.’

MARLON BRANDO (1924 – 2004)                      

‘I put on an act sometimes, and people think I’m insensitive. Really, it’s like a kind of armour because I’m too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn’t like me, I’ve got to get out.’

‘With women, I’ve got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end. I slip the loop around their necks so they can’t get away or come too close. Like catching snakes.’

[On Malcolm X] ‘He was a dynamic person, a very special human being who might have caused a revolution. He had to be done away with. The American government couldn’t let him live. If 23 million blacks found a charismatic leader like he was, they would have followed him. The powers that be couldn’t accept that.’

‘It seems to me hilarious that our government put the face of Elvis Presley on a postage stamp after he died from an overdose of drugs. His fans don’t mention that because they don’t want to give up their myths. They ignore the fact that he was a drug addict and claim he invented rock ‘n’ roll when in fact he stole it from black culture: they had been singing that way for years before he came along, copied them and became a star.’

‘I always enjoyed watching John Wayne, but it never occurred to me until I spoke with Indians how corrosive and damaging and destructive his movies were – most Hollywood movies were,’

[1976] Homosexuality is so much in fashion it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me. But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing.’

[On Burt Reynolds] ‘He’s the epitome of everything that is disgusting about the thespian. He worships at the temple of his own narcissism.’

FELICIA FARR (1932 – )                             

[In a 1955 UPI interview, the former wife of actor Jack Lemmon spoke of Marilyn Monroe’s reputation for not wearing underwear]: ‘Nowadays, powerful girdles and uplift bras make most girls look like knights in armour. Some of the brassieres they wear are downright vulgar. On the other hand, I can’t go along with Marilyn Monroe’s theory of not wearing anything at all under dresses. Girls should always wear panties and brassieres. It’s indecent not to.’

Ryan with his wife Reese Witherspoon

RYAN PHILLIPPE (1974 – )                      

[On starting a family with his wife, actress Reese Witherspoon]: ‘It just makes so many other things insignificant. It is the most incredible thing that has happened to me, and I feel so lucky to have found the person I want to be with, and to be prepared and enthusiastic. Things like my baby and my wife are a lot more important to me than being in one of the top ten grossing movies of all time. [Ryan and Reese divorced in 2007 after eight years together]

ROBERT SHAW (1927 – 78)         

‘I still don’t think of myself as a star. Success only lasts three seconds.  After that you’re the same as you were before you had it. I’m not a true artist anyway because I refuse to shrug off my family. To support them I must work in commercial films. My taxes alone keep eight lawyers busy, and when I finally get my money, it’s only one third of what I earn. With my kids in school and my other responsibilities, I get no change back from the first million dollars. The money flows out like water.’

[In 1977] ‘I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time. I have my new marriage. I have my new baby, my tenth child. I don’t have to work in third-rate movies anymore, and I’m in great physical shape.’ [A heart attack took him at fifty the following year].

AMY ADAMS (1974 – )                   

‘I have worked with some of the meanest people in the world. You can’t do anything to intimidate me.’

‘I grew up as a Mormon and that had more of an impact on my values than my beliefs. I’m afraid I will always feel the weight of a lie. I’m very hard on myself anyway. Religious guilt carries over too. You can’t really misbehave without feeling badly about it. At least, I can’t.’

[Being interviewed by Robert Ito about her 2013 film American Hustle] ‘I want to say the f-word so much in this interview because these characters are in such a f’d-up situation, but I think it’s rude. Mormon upbringing. I’ll say it in a film, but that’s a character. I just won’t say it in print.’