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I do see things that are funny on the net. I Googled myself the other day and found out that I was worth $250m, and that I was the highest-paid guy in show business! I wish so hard it was true. It is, of course, the complete opposite. I'm neither rich nor do I make a lot of money.
I've made movies that I thought were good. I've made movies that I thought were okay, but then I was very good. And sometimes you're in a movie and you think, I wish more people saw that - because you're good. And it just works out that the movie gets lost. But that's show business.
I think I'm great. I mean, I might as well come out and say it. Like most people, I have an ego and I'm in show business, so you have to have kind of a healthy, conflagrated ego to a degree. On the other hand, I'm consumed, like a lot of people, with self-doubt and loathing and guilt.
I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar, but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it, and you've got to be a businessman. But then again, you have to be true to yourself as an artist.
Where I came from, the idea of going into show business was just ridiculous; in fact I didn't tell anybody because I knew people would laugh at me. So I sort of snuck around and got some pictures and got a resume together and, of course, lied and said I did all kinds of things I didn't do.
I do have to say, there is this incredible benefit to being older. I never thought I'd say that. I've figured out that show business isn't the end-all. I thought I'd never be tired of Hollywood, of the experience, and I have to say there's some relief. As you get older, your taste changes.
I'm certainly a real homebody. But the truth is that I understand that desire to, in a way, go join the circus. That's what got me out of Long Island and into show business. I was like, 'I'm just going to have an adventure. I want to be a person that isn't surrounded by their mail and their cat.'
This is show business, and there's room for the shows and the personalities. But I think there's also room for music, for people to play music, and there seems to be an audience developing that's willing to go listen to music again, rather than just be blown away by drum machines and choreography.
Now we're here in 2009. My boys are 16 and 18, one's going to USC film school, and the other seems to be a natural comedian. So now I have to go back into show business as a senior comedian. So I hope to get Walter Brennan-type roles, Gabby Hayes kind of stuff, be the old-timer. We'll see what happens.
One cannot forget that show business also deals with humans. Everything is not so superficial that this is rigged or planned. Sometimes people do fall in love with each other because they spend a lot of time on the sets so much so the set becomes your first home, and your actual home becomes your second home.
I'm much more aware of how distraught my father could be internally. That was normal to me - the obsession with work, the crazy hours - and when I watch it on screen I really see how enveloped he was by show business to the point where he didn't develop much of another life. Everything was show business to him.
I am interested in a lot of things - not just show business and my passion for animals. I try to keep current in what's going on in the world. I do mental exercises. I don't have any trouble memorizing lines because of the crossword puzzles I do every day to keep my mind a little limber. I don't sit and vegetate.
Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.
In all my years in show business - on stage, clubs and TV shows - my audience has been 75 percent white. In Las Vegas and Atlantic City I look out at the crowd and only see a few black faces here and there. But I can't allow myself to be conscious of the race factor. I couldn't perform my best under those conditions.
I never was in favor of doing this. No, no, no. I was never in favor of cursing on records and so forth. I wasn't brought up like that. But I needed to survive and make money and get me a piece of show business. So when I found I could hit with this, then I turned to it. And in order to turn to it, you must do it well.
Show business always tries to stereotype you, so that is something you have to fight against no matter who you are. A lot of actors who are of a minority background complain that they only get stereotyped roles, and they are 100 percent correct. However, it's also true that, no matter who you are, you get typecast as well.
After my kids were born I found myself incorporating my photography into different art endeavors and from there it just blossomed. I have always had to have an outlet for my creativity and when my life became more about raising my family than the bright lights of show business exploring my photo art was a great outlet for me.
I always wanted to be a zookeeper when I was growing up, and I've wound up a zookeeper! I've been working with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years! I'm the luckiest old broad on two feet because my life is divided absolutely in half - half animals and half show business. You can't ask for better than two things you love the most.
I did not have a happy family life a few years ago. I was divorced, and I was very alienated from my daughter, and I was out there cutting every ribbon and running around New York hosting events for different causes to supplant my loss because I didn't have a family to go home to. Now I don't want to be Mr. Show Business anymore.
I was a 6-foot-tall 13-year-old who couldn't play basketball. I moved around all the time as a kid, and at each new school, the coach would say, 'He's the great white hope' - but I couldn't play ball. So my thing was jokes and characters and making fun of myself and being the 6-foot-9 Jewish guy. That was my way into show business.
I am kind of a private person, so I don't miss that part of show business at all. Looking back on my career in television and making a movie like 'The Sound of Music' from an adult point of view, it actually seems kind of unreal. I was involved in shows that people grew up with - that hold memories for them - and it's a cool feeling.
That's what Letterman did. He mocked everything and everyone in show business, even though he was at the top of show business. He was in it but not really of it, and that's one thing I came to love about him. I mean, you can't sit there and interview Cher and pretend you're not in show business, but he managed to pull it off somehow.
People deal with grief in many different ways. And some people in show business parade their relationships around like an accessory, and others like to keep it separate from business and commerce. It's perfectly fine to say, 'I actually don't want to talk about my love because that's not part of the fantasy world I created in commerce.'
See, every thing in show business is a lie. It ain't all it's cracked up to be. You are in situations where you are forced to think that you are better than everybody else because of the pedestal the fans place you on. It's a lie. This is just a job, a high-profile job. You have to keep that in perspective and not get caught up in the hype.
Every night, half an hour before curtain up, the bells of St. Malachy's, the Actors' Chapel on New York's 49th Street, peal the tune of 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' If you walk the streets of the theatre district before a show and see the vast, enthusiastic lines it sounds like a calling: there is certainly no place like Broadway.