Quotes

[in 1992, about Myrna Loy] What was her magic? I don't know. She was just magic!

Hollywood was a fantasy world in more ways than one. But it must be said that the industry did a lot for the war effort by producing some marvelous propaganda movies.

[on Johnny Weissmuller] An amiable piece of beefcake; a likeable, overgrown child.

Will Rogers wasn't helpful to me at all. He was just concerned with his way of doing things. He didn't like me much because I used to wear slacks to the studio, and that was not done much in those days, so I guess he thought I was rather fast.

I found Mervyn LeRoy an awfully nice director to work for on Tugboat Annie (1933). He was so nice he was not nice, if you know what I mean. Because he would promise people--in all good heart--a part, fully meaning to give it to them, but then they never got the parts so people turned against them.

Wallace Beery was a tiresome actor. He always stopped work at four o'clock (for which I didn't blame him.) He'd say, "That's it, that's it!"

I don't think I ever got parts that interested me. Well, I did occasionally, but more often than not, they did not interest me. I wasn't the standard beauty type--it was all marvelous-looking people like Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford--and I didn't have the glamor or whatever it is that was the style of those days, so consequently I got landed with parts that were not terribly interesting to me, and it was rather hard to be ambitious under those conditions. I probably would have fared better nowadays when looks count less.

There was a period when I got so sick of all they would ask me about Tarzan, as though I had done nothing else. I changed my mind when my oldest son said to me he was very proud that I was Tarzan's mate.

[on meeting Edgar Rice Burroughs] [He] was a nice guy . . . He asked me if I had read any Tarzan books, and I had to say no. I had barely heard of Tarzan. He sent me a copy of every one of his books . . . He thought [Johnny Weissmuller] and I were the perfect Tarzan and Jane, which is lovely.