Quotes

[on his great friend Tony Randall] The best friend a man could ever have. I loved him dearly. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. I will miss him for the rest of my days.

[on former roommate Charles Bronson] You remembered him. He had an amazing presence.

[on working with Tony Randall] There's nobody better to improvise with than Tony. A script might say,"Oscar teaches Felix football". There would be four blank pages. He would provoke me into reacting to what he did. Mine was the easy part.

[on the hardships of his life] Poverty can teach lessons that privilege cannot.

[on smoking] I saw John Garfield smoke. He was my idol, so I smoked. I even smoked like him . . . The only really stupid thing I ever did in my life was to start smoking.

[on what made Quincy, M.E. (1976) a hit] Quincy was a muckraker, like Upton Sinclair, who wrote about injustices. He was my ideal as a youngster, my author, my hero. Everybody said, "Quincy' will never be a hit.". I said, "You guys are wrong. He's two heroes in one, a cop and a doctor". A coroner has power. He can tell the police commissioner to investigate a murder. I saw the opportunity to do what I'd gotten into the theater to do--give a message. They were going to do cops and robbers with "Quincy". I said, "You promised me I could do causes". They said, "Nobody wants to see that" I said, "Look at the success of 60 Minutes (1968). They want to see it if you present it as entertainment".