JULIA ROBERTS (1967 – ) 

[About President George W. Bush’s daughters being caught with alcohol as minors] ‘We all need to take a deep breath and think about being a Bush daughter and having that cross to bear. I’d go out and have a couple of drinks, too. He’s embarrassing, he’s not my president. He will never be my president.’

‘I don’t know what I’ve already said about I Love Trouble (1994), other than that it was a piece of shit. It’s no secret that Nick [Nolte] and I didn’t get along like a house on fire.’

LARRY HAGMAN (1931 – 2012)                          

[Regarding his introduction to marijuana by actor Jack Nicholson, as a safer alternative to his heavy drinking] ‘I liked it because it was fun. It made me feel good, and I never had a hangover!’ [Hagman, the male lead in the hit TVseries, I Dream of Jeannie, began drinking and smoking as a teenager and indulged in both for forty-five years. He had a liver transplant in 1995 and died from cancer in 2012].

ANGELINA JOLIE (1975 – )                                  

‘I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did. This behaviour towards women in any field, any country, is unacceptable.’

GRETA GARBO (1905-90)                                     

‘I am not proud of being a film star. I have no reason to be. Compared with other professions, what I am doing is nothing.’

[On America] ‘It is bitter to think of one’s best years disappearing in this unpolished country.’

DENNIS HOPPER (1936-2010)                              

[2001] ‘I’ve been sober now for eighteen years. With all the drugs, psychedelics and narcotics I did, I was [really] an alcoholic. Honestly, I only used to do cocaine so I could sober up and drink more. My last five years of drinking was a nightmare. I was drinking a half-gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, in case I ran out, 28 beers a day, and three grams of cocaine just to keep me moving around. And I thought I was doing fine because I wasn’t crawling around drunk on the floor.’

‘I’ve been a Republican since Reagan. I voted for Bush and his father. I don’t tell a lot of people because I live in a city where somebody who voted for Bush is really an outcast.’

[On the imprisonment of his friend, composer/actor Phil Spector, convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2003] ‘I don’t know if he shot that girl or not, but I know that if he did, it was an accident. When you play with guns, accidents happen.’

GEORGE PEPPARD (1928-94)                             

[On being fired from Dynasty (1981), following disagreements with the producers] ‘Everyone thought I was crazed because of my career being in the dumps at the moment. I’m so glad I wasn’t drinking. I bet a lot of people thought when I did certain things, I’d been drinking, and now they found out it wasn’t the booze at all, it was me.’

RACHEL ROBERTS (1927-80)                             

[The actress who was Rex Harrison’s fourth wife had this to say about him]: ‘Rex cannot be pleased. Servants have got slapped with his tongue or hand. Eventually, his servants and wives leave him. Rex is one of those who thinks living well is the best revenge. It may be, but the revenge is taken out on his nearest and dearest. It is very difficult to be taken seriously when you’re introduced at a party to somebody as the fourth Mrs. Rex Harrison.’

REX HARRISON (1908-90)                                    

[On Audrey Hepburn portraying flower girl Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964)] ‘Eliza Doolittle is supposed to be ill at ease in European ballrooms. Bloody Audrey has never spent a day in her life out of European ballrooms!

DAVID SCHWIMMER (1966 – )                

[Schwimmer is one of the much-loved stars of the hit series Friends]. ‘I don’t think I responded well to the sudden celebrity, the sudden fame, the loss of privacy. I remember just going to the airport and walking to my gate, when I heard blood-curdling screams and I thought someone was been killed. Before I knew it, a group of girls was running at me and literally dragging me and wouldn’t let me go.’

TERESA PALMER (1986 – )                            

South Australian actress Teresa Palmer portrayed Australian jockey Michelle Payne (she rode the winner of the Melbourne Cup in 2015, when she crossed the line first on Prince of Penzance), in the 2019 movie Ride Like a Girl. Teresa had to learn to ride horses for the role and was asked about the dangers involved in horse-racing.: ‘There’s always an air of caution. Now that I’m a mother, I’m more cautious. I was hyper-aware of dangers and the risks of getting on a horse, but I also knew I was protected in many ways. And hearing Michelle talk about her falls that really hit home. It is such an incredible achievement, winning the Melbourne Cup, being a female winning the Melbourne Cup, and facing all the adversity, but to also have to overcome those injuries, It is achievement, after achievement, after achievement. You couldn’t make the story up.’

OMAR SHARIF (1932 – 2015)                    

[The Egyptian actor who portrayed Sherif Ali in the 1962 classic movie Lawrence of Arabia]: ‘I lived in America for a long time. Only ten percent of all Americans have a passport. In other words, ninety percent never left America. They don’t know anything. The typical Middle Eastern man is far more intelligent.’

[On being the ‘only Arab’ working in Hollywood]: ‘I had to be very careful. For example, Columbia Pictures signed a five-year contract with me when I made Lawrence of Arabia in 1962, but they didn’t pay me anything. When I made Doctor Zhivago in 1965 they sold me to MGM for $15,000. I made the film for $15,000. My American lawyer said, ‘I can sue them’, and I said, no, leave it, I don’t want them to think of me as someone who only wants money.’

[On Barbra Streisand] ‘I thought she was not very attractive at first. But gradually she cast her spell over me. I fell madly in love with her talent. The feeling was mutual for four months – the time it took to shoot the movie.’