Quotes

[about filming dinner scenes on Dallas (1978)] The continuity girl goes crazy. The poor dear, my gosh! Because you take a bite, you gotta remember when you took the bite, what words, that sort of thing. If you sit down with Patrick Duffy, who plays Bobby, and [Larry Hagman] at a meal like that, it's like sitting down with two of the worst brats in the neighborhood! They pull more shtick at that table. They send the scripts up. It is pandemonium! It's a minor miracle that anything gets done.

[about his heart surgery] One person who has really been an inspiration for me in this is my good friend Barbara Bel Geddes, who underwent coronary bypass surgery herself about three years ago. I've learned some things from Barbara. One thing I learned is that you don't accomplish anything by sitting around the house after something like this - except to get yourself good and bored. I was one of those that encouraged her to come back to the show, and I've never seen Barbara looking happier or more healthy looking than since she returned to Dallas (1978). Seeing her return has been a real inspiration. It shows how you can come back from heart surgery.

[about his choice to go ahead with open heart surgery in January, 1986, despite the risk of losing his job on Dallas (1978)] There is always another part. But there is only one life!

Any time you get in an area that takes a great deal of skill, you'll find that the tendrils are much more sensitive. People talk about actors being temperamental, but that sort of thing is everywhere.

Once somebody said to me, "How can you stand to work in a tent?" Well, people are people wherever you go, and a performance is a performance. It's your job and it's not fair to let an audience down. I will not relax the standards of what I feel should be done.

If I had my ups and downs, that's tough. If everything in life always went smoothly, it would be a bloody bore. You know, people say, "Wait and go to heaven". Well, if heaven's like they claim it is, I don't want to go. I'd get bored. Besides, I think heaven's right here, in your mind. You make your own heaven and hell, I think. All this nonsense about heaven: "Be good so you can go up there." I say be good because you should be good, because you don't want to hurt people.

You should never envy anyone. One day you might be in that person's position and it might not be so nice.

The only way to enjoy golf is to be a masochist. Go out and beat yourself to death.

I'm not a religious man. As a matter of fact, I think religion is one of the biggest evils in this world. Think of the world's wars, almost all of them have started because of religion. I have my own attitude to this life. Hell, you can't look up at the sky and not think there's some superhuman force at work. But I don't know what it is.

When I found out that I could carry a tune, well, I came to realize that I had a gift, that it was a kind of a blessing. And I think if you're given something special, you ought to try and give that something back. If you don't, it's a sin. No question.

[about his work on Dallas (1978)][ I started out a long time ago, and now the younger generation knows who I am. My daughter is a part of that younger generation, and I owe it to her not to act like an old man.

You get your ups and downs but you just don't fall apart. You take another shot at it.

[about his job on Dallas (1978)] When I was offered the role of Farlow, I was thrilled. It meant I could be home every night with my family.

Success can be harder to take than failure in a lot of ways. It brings with it a responsibility. You have to learn that all the highs don't last forever. For every high, there's a corresponding low. It's why young kids often go to pieces. When they get so popular they can't go out of their hotel rooms, that's when they turn to drugs. Success can be very dangerous, very heady.

[about retirement] I'm just having too much fun. As long as I can sing well, I'll keep at it. The minute I feel that the voice is getting down, the minute I feel that I can't cut the mustard, I'll quit.

God has been kind. I haven't got any great talent but everyone has a certain amount and it's what you do with it that counts. I was blessed with a voice and I used it.

[on Kathryn Grayson] She's a beautiful woman. A good friend. Fun to be around.

I had a terrible, rotten childhood. My father made away with himself when I was 11. I had no guidance, my mom was six feet tall, bucktoothed and very tough. I was mean and rebellious and had a terrible temper. I got a job as an auto mechanic, and I would have stayed in that narrow kind of life if I hadn't discovered art. Music changed me completely.

It was a fine cast and lots of fun to make, but they did the damn thing on the cheap. The backdrops had holes in them and it was shot on the worst film stock. - On Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)