- [on All About Eve (1950)] I patterned Eve [Harrington] after the understudy I had in a Broadway play when I was 13. She actually threatened to finish me off. She was the bitchiest person I ever saw.
- The Razor's Edge (1946) contained my only great performance. When we shot that hospital scene in which "Sophie" loses her husband, child and everything else, I relived the death of my brother, whom I adored and who died at three. It gives me chills right now to think of it.
- I'm an actress, not a personality. It's more successful to be a personality. But can you use it in every role? I don't spill over into everything I do. I do what I do from inside someone else's skin.
- [on Frank Lloyd Wright] Like many famous men, my grandfather had been too busy to be a good father. But he was a charming grandfather. He designed plans for me for a doll-house. On his wedding night, he wore nothing but a red sash. Now that's what I call a true romantic.
- Tallulah Bankhead is a marvelous female impersonator.
- [on Hedy Lamarr in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949)] If I had just seen myself as Delilah, looking as Hedy did, I would still be talking about it.
- The greatest beauty secret in the world is rest. It is the fundamental rule which must be followed if you want to look well and feel well.
- If a role is challenging, then my enthusiasm is unflagging and I can bring something special to the performance.
- [in 1954] There's no reason why feet should be the ugliest part of the body. Four thousand years ago Egyptians considered a woman's feet beautiful. So why not today?
- The eye, someone said, is the window of the soul and the Egyptian beauties seemed to know that it was an extremely lethal weapon.
- Partly because I'm an actress, but chiefly because I'm a woman, I've been doing research in the field of feminine allure since I was about 10. Now my knowledge of beauty secrets has been greatly enlarged by playing the role of Nefretiri, the Queen of Egypt, in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956).
- Nefretiri ruled the glamor arena some 3,200 years ago, and it's surprising how much the ladies of that day knew about the art of stalking a man.
- I noticed that not long after I turned blonde, people began behaving differently toward me, saying sillier things and playing more practical jokes. So I started giving it right back until pretty soon I realized that this wasn't the Anne I used to think myself, but quite a different character - a much more interesting one, I think.
- With this nose and full Irish face, I just didn't look like an Egyptian. I wanted to wear a putty nose but Mr. DeMille was so appalled at the idea I had to forget about it.
- Acting is not what I do. It's what I am. It's my permanent, built-in cathedral.
- Darryl Zanuck [Darryl F. Zanuck, head of the 20th Century Fox studio] thought all women were either broads or librarians. He thought I was a librarian. He thought I was smart.
- There was only one DeMille, and there wasn't an actor in the world who didn't want to work for him just once.
- [on All About Eve (1950)] None of us knew we were making a film classic. Every day was like a glorious relay race.
- [on All About Eve (1950)] None of us, Marilyn Monroe included, none of us could wait to get to work.
- [on All About Eve (1950)] I was good, I was respected, I had a great part, the script was superb; the actors were perfect and perfectly cast. Even me, and I wasn't always.
- John Hodiak and I were happily married then, but I had a secret crush on Joseph L. Mankiewicz. His wit, his modest perspicacity, and my latent father complex drew me to him like a magnet. In fact, all the ladies on the set melted and gravitated to him as I did.
- George Sanders did not in the least resemble Sleepy, the Disney dwarf. However, they shared a penchant for shuteye. George slept soundly in his portable dressing room between shots.
- Alfred Hitchcock had turned me blond for I Confess (1953), and I'd stayed that way, at considerable cost in time and money and effort, until The Ten Commandments (1956) three years later. At which point, Cecil B. DeMille turned me auburn. The use of henna was prevalent in Egypt, and I was to play Egyptian Nefertiti's granddaughter Nefretiri. Actually I wore several wigs, but the picture went on so long I got used to myself reddish.
- [1976] I can still see Sir Cedric Hardwicke sweating copiously in what he bitterly called his plastic beanie, which was two feet tall. He played the old Pharaoh Sethi. And Yul Brynner, expressionlessly arrogant, thrusting out his arm with first and second fingers open in a victory sign, into which his trembling body servant slid a lighted cigarette. Regal Yul never, ever looked around. That used to really impress DeMille.
- I took a cut in salary to work for DeMille; a lot of actors did; he seemed to expect it as a kind of due. There was only one DeMille and there wasn't an actor in the world who didn't want to work for him just once, however short the salary or tall the corn. I could still picture Angela Lansbury coyly running around in chiffon skivvies, letting arrows fly at the back end of a lion skin tacked on a patio wall in Samson and Delilah (1949). I always thought that looked like good fun.
- Edith Head and I really got to know each other in The Ten Commandments (1956). We had fittings on the unbelievably extravagant costumes for over a period of eight months. I made two other pictures in between fittings.
- Nineteen hundred forty-six had been quite a year. I had married John Hodiak and, through a ridiculous series of Hollywood flukes, got the coveted part of Sophie in The Razor's Edge (1946). I knew about the film - they'd tested thirteen girls on and off the Twentieth Century-Fox lot. It never occurred to me they'd even consider me for the part. I'd been sidetracked into sweet-ingenue roles, and from what I'd heard about Sophie, I didn't have a prayer.
- [1953] In all honesty I must admit that I'm no holier-than-thou. I'm not Gree-ah Garson [Greer Garson]. I'm a young actress who resents being presented as dull and inhibited.
- [1953] In the past my sex appeal has been kept in shackles. My fan mail, for example, has always consisted of letters congratulating me on my acting ability, my interpretation of various roles. I appreciate those letters. I really do. But why haven't I got any mail asking for pinup photos? The answer is simple: men, because of my films and reputation, have regarded me as brainy, dull, motherly, practical, anything but sexy.
- There is no stopping ambition. I always like to dramatize things in my life. Acting is not merely fun, it's an earnest career.
- [on her second Academy Award nomination] My career had gone on since the age of 13 . . . and I felt that I had worked long enough to have earned leading-actress status. . . . I should have been practical the way the studio was practical. They knew what my billing was. . . .
- I guess I do take chances. But then, I have a large appetite for life. I want to experience everything.
- [on Frank Lloyd Wright, who left his family for another woman] Mother always said he was a lousy father. And she said it just that way . . . that he may be a great architect . . . but he is a lousy father.
- [on Darryl F. Zanuck, who wanted to nominate her for Best Supporting Actress for All About Eve (1950)] He said he could guarantee a win. But could he? Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter both got nominations and split the vote, so Josephine Hull won. So how would I have won as the third nominee? I told him the movie was titled after my character. It wasn't called All About Margo, was it? So I refused. I got nominated and so did Bette as Best Actress and we split the vote and Judy Holliday got it. Betty was more than mildly upset, Zanuck more so. My career at Fox was over, although it took me awhile to realize that.
- [on Orson Welles] To his credit Orson always asked us for acting solutions, to try something a different way. And yes, he did make the obligatory pass at me and I made the obligatory refusal.
- [on her popularity as a star of World War II films] I was getting almost as much mail as Betty Grable. I was our boys' idealized girl next door.
- [on I Confess (1953)] Hitch had hired a Norwegian star, Anita Björk, but when she arrived in Hollywood she confided in Jack Warner she was expecting. And Jack freaked out because that would have made her an illegitimate mother. So he fired her and told me to fly to Quebec City, where shooting had already commenced. Hitch was seething but there was nothing he could do, and I was never able to warm him up.
- At one time I was up for How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) until Nunnally Johnson picked Marilyn Monroe, as he should have. She had zoomed in popularity after All About Eve (1950). But I turned blond for a screen test for him and I stayed blond for a bit. My agent, Henry Wilson, even had me smoking cigars for the sake of publicity!
- [on The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)] I'd talked with and tested for Orson Welles, but he said his heart was set on Jeanne Crain, who he'd met in the RKO commissary. Jeanne was prettier than I was but hadn't acted as yet. RKO studio head George Schaefer made the call, much to Orson's displeasure. His days as the studio golden boy ended when Citizen Kane (1941) failed to return a profit.
- [on Homecoming (1948)] The film just was not believable. Gable and Lana Turner are doctor and nurse on the front lines and each night repair to separate tents? I think not. But the censor would not permit any hints of adultery. That was the Code in effect. And I was stuck on the home front and never wavered? Blah. It would have been far more realistic to confront the actual situations that had arisen. So the picture flopped. Big time.
- [on Wallace Beery, her co-star in 20 Mule Team (1940)] Wally Beery had very busy hands and Marjorie Rambeau said she'd protect me - and she did, very nicely. Stepped right in and would snort, "Back off, you old sea horse!" Acting with him was impossible. He'd paraphrase everything and told me to "jump right in when I stop talking."
- [on her appearance in 1940] I had a body like a mini Mack truck and a face that looked like it was storing nuts for the winter.
- [on the Academy Award] It's like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.
- [on The Ten Commandments (1956)] The soundstage sets were magnificent. It was all corny, sure, but DeMille knew it was corny - that's what he wanted, what he loved. I loved slinking around - really, this was silent film acting but with dialogue. No shading was permitted. "Louder! Better!" That's what DeMille roared at everybody. It was all too much for him, I'm afraid, and directing the desert scenes in the Sinai was so strenuous he had a heart attack. This one was the last film he directed. It's on TV every Easter. I advise sitting down with a big box of chocolates, a jug of white wine, and a loaf of freshly baked bread. I do it that way and I still love this last gasp of old Hollywood excessiveness.
- [on You're My Everything (1949)] It spoofed vaudeville and silent movies, but people couldn't have cared less. They did it so much better in Singin' in the Rain (1952), I'm afraid.
- [describing an interview with Cecil B. DeMille for the role of Nefretiri in The Ten Commandments (1956)] DeMille asked me to come in. His office at Paramount was bursting with books, props, rolls of linens. I told him I'd have to wear an Egyptian false nose and he pounded the table. "No. Baxter, your Irish nose stays in this picture." He acted out my part and I kept nodding, and I walked out with the part.
- [on The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1952)] I'm getting my clothes selected in rehearsals and Miriam Hopkins comes up and pats me on the shoulder, saying, "My dear, both of us have survived Bette Davis!"
- [on A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950)] On that one I very well remember Marilyn Monroe as one of the chorus girls. She had dirty fingernails and always seemed so unkempt and then she just exploded in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and All About Eve (1950). But here? Didn't even get billing.
- The Academy Awards are a horse race. Any time you vote between five people, all kinds of things happen. To me, the accolade is the nomination, because this is the joy of your peers, who simply say we think you did a great job. That's all there is to it. That's the nice thing.
- [on Charlton Heston] I think there's no doubt at all that Charlton was deeply affected by the role he played [in The Ten Commandments (1956)]. Moses, you see, had to be so subtly differentiated in portraying the three great phases of his life - those of the Prince of Egypt, the outlaw shepherd, and the man who led the Israelites to the Promised Land - that it required interpretation of the most delicate shadings. I, as the queen who loved him, could feel how beautifully he accomplished this.
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