Quotes

Being educated is making the pictures themselves, if you make it your business to pay attention.

To be a good director, you've got to be a bastard. I'm a bastard and I know it.

You don't have to hold an inquest to find out who killed Marilyn Monroe. Those bastards in the big executive chairs killed her.

When I went to work in Universal Studios in 1914, there were five women directors. Lois Weber made the biggest pictures. John Ford and I alternated as prop men for this great director. If women haven't got a good directing job now, it's their own fault.

There's lots of nice guys walking around Hollywood but they're not eating.

[1970 comment on Kim Novak] I worked one day with her and I quit.

[on Gary Cooper] Gary Cooper was the first actor to believe you didn't have to mug to act, if you thought of what you were doing, it showed--and he proved he was right.

[on Seven Thieves (1960) Christ, it was supposed to be a fun film, and [Rod Steiger] is far, far from having a sense of humor.

[on Dana Andrews] [He] had a quality. I'll tell you one thing he had like nobody I've ever seen in my life. Drunk or sober, he comes in in the morning and they're making him up and he would say, "What do I do today?" And you say, "Do this." And he would look at the script and he goes out and he's a district attorney and he pleads the case to the jury and he never misses a word. Pages of it.

[on Lloyd Nolan] I liked Lloyd. He was a natural actor. He appeared just like any other guy. He wasn't good looking, wasn't a big star, wasn't impressive in his size. Just another guy, and that's what I liked about him.

[1971, on Richard Burton] [He] was always very professional. None of the behavior I was warned about. He was sober throughout, and always early on the set.

With [Victor Fleming] I did The Virginian (1929). I did all those early Westerns, all those Zane Greys, the ones I did over again. I mostly learned from them how to handle people. I would take a script home and think, "Now what would I tell these people to do to make the scene, how would I start it, where would be the climax, how I could get out of it, how do I get rid of the people, where would I do it"--in front of the fire or on the couch, what would I do? And I'd make up my mind, and I'd make a lot of notes and then I'd see what they did. Entirely different! But you would learn!