EMILY BLUNT (1983 – )               

[On why she avoids on-screen nudity] ‘I’m not so keen on doing nudity, because I’m not 22 anymore. It’s not so much a moral thing as I’ve done it before and do I really want to do it again? Does it serve the film or is it gratuitous and seeing someone’s tits for the sake of it? Because I don’t think it’s necessary most of the time.’

CLARA BOW (1905 – 65)              

‘We had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I used to whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel, with several red Chow dogs to match my hair. Today, they’re sensible and end up with better health. But we had more fun.’

[On her poverty-stricken childhood in Brooklyn] ‘No-one wanted me in the first place. Often I was lonesome, frightened and miserable. I never had a doll in my life. I never had any clothes, and lots of times didn’t have anything to eat. We just lived, and that’s about all.  Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed, the worst looking kid on the street. I decided that girls weren’t any good, and being lonely and needing child friends, cast my lot with the neighborhood boys. I became a regular tomboy – played baseball, football and learned to box.’

CHEVY CHASE (1943 – )               

[On director John Landis] ‘He’s a bit of a bully, to say the least, with the wrong people, the easy shots. He’s got a crassness about him. Anybody who can pick on a set director or an extra in front of everybody else in a very mean way is lacking something. I would think that an experience like Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) would put some humility into your life. But it didn’t.’

[On Robin Williams] ‘Robin and I were great friends, suffering from the same little-known disease, depression. I never could have expected this ending to his life, and to ours with him. I cannot believe this. I am overwhelmed with grief. What a wonderful man/boy, and what a tremendous talent in the most important art of any time – comedy! I loved him.’

GOLDIE HAWN (1945 – )              

[A 1979 observation] ‘Hollywood is the cruelest place on Earth. Values are incredibly bad. People are easy. Money is too easy. People are vicious. They smile at you and stab you in the back. You can’t confide in anyone. And the most successful people never grow. Their egos are weird. That’s why we never go to Hollywood parties. People are phony and stilted. They stare at each other and go off with a different person every night. It’s disgusting. And people are so cold. They never make a real, deep commitment to each other.’

[And in 1977] ‘Monogamy is impossible these days for both sexes. I don’t know anyone who’s faithful or wants to be.’

TIM ROBBINS (1958 – )                 

‘We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanors of the President of the United States. [Bill Clinton] lied about a low job and got impeached by the media and Congress. [George W. Bush] got us into the Iraq war based on lies that he knew were lies…His war has recruited more Al – Qaeda members than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed for…yet no-one in the media is calling for impeachment.’

ROBERT MORLEY (1908-92)                  

[Morley was a master of the memorable ‘one-liner’]: ‘It is a great help for a man to be in love with himself; for an actor it is absolutely essential.’

‘Show me the man who has enjoyed his schooldays and I will show you a bully and a bore.’ [When asked to give a talk at his old school, he said the only reason he would return to the school would be to burn it down!]

‘Anyone who works is a fool – I don’t work, I merely inflict myself on the public.’

‘Actors live in a cocoon of praise – they never meet the people who don’t like them.’

‘If you want me to do a film, it’s five hundred thousand pounds, but if you want me to read the script first it’s seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’

‘On Peter Ustinov]: ‘Remarkable fellow, Ustinov – very nearly a genius, but, fortunately, not quite.’

T.R. KNIGHT (1973 – )                   

[He played George O’Malley in the hit TV series Grey’s Anatomy and is a close friend of cast-mate Katherine Heigl (Izzie Stevens). In fact, he was a groomsman at her wedding to song-writer Josh Kelley in December 2007.]

‘I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I’d like to quiet any unnecessary rumours that may be out there. While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I’m gay isn’t the most interesting part of me.’

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY (1985 – )                 

[On Harvey Weinstein] ‘I absolutely knew he was a bully, and I absolutely knew he was a womaniser, but I totally thought that was consensual. But rape?’

‘I could never have an affair with any of my leading men, though. They always turn into brothers. I’m a classic turn-them-into-brothers kind of girl.’

JANET LEIGH (1927 – 2004)                    

[When asked if it was true that she did not take showers after making Psycho (1960] ‘It’s actually, honestly true. And not because of the shooting of it. It was the seeing of it. It never dawned on me how truly vulnerable we are. But that’s what [Alfred Hitchcock] did. A shower. A bird. All these things that are absolutely ordinary, he made extraordinary. Psycho gave me wrinkled skin. I was in that shower for seven days – 70 setups. At least [Hitchcock] made sure the water was warm.’

BEN AFFLECK (1972 – )                           

[When asked why he thought George W. Bush, after hearing that New York was under attack on Sept 11, remained in a Florida classroom, doing nothing, for several minutes] ‘It’s obviously very disturbing footage. On the one hand, you see a reaction on a man’s face that he is clearly pained and shocked. I probably did the same thing sitting on my chair. I was completely freaked out and a little devastated. On the other hand, one does hope that in one’s leaders, that they have the instinct to spring into action, to take some action or make the appearance of taking some action. And I was disappointed to see that he didn’t do that, although I don’t entirely hold it against him because, frankly, I was as shocked and devastated as he was. Although I think flying around in Air Force One for eleven hours before coming back and landing in the White House was probably less forgivable.’

[On producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017] ‘I knew he was sleazy and a bully, but unfortunately that wasn’t that uncommon. I was brand new to Hollywood; I was 24 years old. I had never made a movie. I didn’t know much of anything.’