Quotes

It is only natural that I should have turned to pictures. Raised in a family that revolves around the picture business, and where, when reading newspapers, each member invariably jumps on the most dramatic incidents and reads them aloud, well, what else could I do?

[on showmanship] Look at my father [Cecil B. DeMille]. When he had a man follow him all over the set with a chair so that he could sit without warning, he did it as a publicity gag. It hit every newspaper in the country. When he received people in a Gothic domed office, with atmosphere laid on a foot thick, he did it for effect. He's really a very shrewd man, a very clever man. He's no artificial poseur. He's a business man. And when he puts an elaborate bathroom scene in a picture he knows it will cause twice as much comment as anybody else's bathroom scene would cause. So he does it. That's showmanship.

Ever since I played charades and silly things like that as a child, I adored acting. When I went to school in Santa Barbara I worked on all the amateur plays, Milne, Barrie, the usual Little Theatre stuff. I always had in mind acting as a profession.

[1934] I don't intend to get married for a long time. But just because of that I'll probably do it right away. That's what I'm afraid of.

[on Wallace Beery] Wally Beery? Oh, he's just a big, overgrown playful puppy.

[on Belle of the Nineties (1934)] I'm the menace [in the film]. But I don't care what roles they give me as long as they're good, and human.

He didn't even know I was doing picture work. The extra jobs were all under the name of Kay Marsh, on the qt. Later on I did some work with him as script girl in Four Frightened People (1934). That was wonderful experience. And of course he allowed me to watch him cut different pictures. He gave me invaluable aid in letting me wander round at will behind the scenes while he was making pictures. But the actual jobs I picked up on my own.

[1934] When I do marry, the man will probably have to have a yacht. I love yachts.

[on auditioning for a role in Viva Villa! (1934)] The family was away at Catalina when I sneaked the test. When they gave me the better part I was so delighted I wired father the news. I think he was pleased but he didn't let me know until he saw how the picture turned out.

[on Mae West] That showmanship that she specializes in shouldn't be held as a measure of her real personality. You have to be a showman in show business, you know. Her swan bed and diamonds and hippy walk are her trademarks, but they aren't Mae West herself.

[on Mae West] Miss West is a brilliant woman. She has a really amazing sense of the dramatic. If a scene lacks something, I've seen her sit down in the middle of a sequence and rewrite it. And that gives it what was needed. She does write a lot of her own stuff because I've seen her do it. I think she's an amazing person. Really swell.

[on the independence of the DeMille family] Nobody asks any questions, so nobody tells any lies.

[on receiving the Academy Award for her husband] I can hardly believe I'm here. I'm sorry that Tony couldn't be here, but when I let him know today by telephone I know he'll be a very happy man. Thank you very much.