Quotes

[on his fondness for his many fans] Sometimes I can feel hands all over me when I get home. But they do it because they're Hoppy's friends.

I've tried to make Hoppy a plain and simple man in manners and dress. Hoppy isn't a flashy character. He isn't illiterate. Nor is he smart-alecky. He doesn't use big words or bad words. After all, I felt that Hoppy might be looked up to and that children might try to pattern their lives after the man. If Hoppy said 'ain't' and 'reckon' and that-away', all the kids might start saying the same things.

[in an interview with Motion Picture Classic magazine, April 1926) Got my strength swinging a sledge-hammer ten hours a day in the oil fields. I was sixteen. I began to work when I was twelve, when my father died, but the oil-field was the hardest job I ever had. I used to get so tired. But I wouldn't let it tear me down because I had too much spirit. It wasn't going to beat me! I think any boy who wants to grow up into a he-man ought to go out and get himself kicked around all over the place and fight and struggle and endure - that is, if he has spirit. If he hasn't, he'll go under.

[on first hearing of Cecil B. De Mille in the early 1920s] I didn't know who Mr. De Mille was - he might have been the janitor at Lasky's - that was how ignorant I was then!

[in an interview with Motion Picture Classic magazine, April 1926] I've always worked. I didn't care what kind of job it was, but I tried to get one that would take me among educated people so that I could learn by listening to them talk. That's the way I got all the education I have. Associating with people who knew things helped a lot. I wanted to know so desperately that I couldn't help remembering.

[In an interview for Picture Play magazine in 1927] I pity any one interviewing me. For there's nothing to say. I've never been to college, and never had a cruel father who commanded me to keep out of pictures. There's neither a family crest nor illustrious relatives.

[in a 1940 interview for Paramount Pictures, speaking about his recently turning down an offer of $4,500 for Topper, his horse] Topper has saved my life on more than one occasion and is just as important to these pictures as I am. He is not for sale at any price. Eventually, he will be pensioned and turned out to spend his final years as he desires. But I figure, barring accident, that he is good for at least two more years in Hopalongs.

[on the The Volga Boatman] When I was getting ready for 'The Volga Boatman', I was worried about what to do with him. I had read the script and knew he was a Russian peasant, and I'd read Russian stories - Tolstoy - and Russian history, and I thought I knew what was back of this fellow, all the centuries of oppression and injustice - the revolt he felt inside. Victor Varconi played the other male role, which made mine more difficult, since he and I are about the same height, build and coloring. Varconi was an officer and would, of course, play it straight, I must be 'character'. First, I decided against wearing a wig and had my hair curled. I had misgivings about that, afraid it would weaken my face, but it didn't. And then, the very night before we began to shoot, the thing came to me. I was walking up and down in my room, like this - [he paced the length of the dressing room, three strides taking him from one wall to the other, and suddenly stopped, standing with his head lowered a trifle, looking up from under sullen lids, a figure tense and yet quiet, as of terrific power held in leash.] There! It came like that. I saw him in the mirror and recognized him.

[In an interview with Motion Picture in which he cheerfully stated he didn't know the first thing about being an actor] If they ever cast me as anything but Bill Boyd, I'm done.