Quotes

I once asked Barbara Stanwyck the secret of acting. She said, "Just be truthful - and if you can fake that you've got it made".

Carole Lombard was a wonderful girl. Swore like a man. Other women try, but she really did.

The two films I did with Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity (1944) and the The Apartment (1960), are the only two parts I did in my entire career that required any acting.

[on working with director Preston Sturges] At the end of this shoot, he said, "It's been a pleasure working with you" and I said, "I wish I could say the same about you." I don't like to be that way, but he was terrible, very cruel.

[on Barbara Stanwyck] I was lucky enough to make four pictures with Barbara. In the first I turned her in, in the second I killed her, in the third I left her for another woman and in the fourth I pushed her over a waterfall. The one thing all these pictures had in common was that I fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck -- and I did, too.

I was asked the other day how I'd like to be remembered. Fondly. Looking back over the years, which they say is a privilege afforded us octogenarians, I have some wonderful memories and people have asked me, 'Why don't you write a book like everyone else is doing?'. I have trouble remembering the names of guys I played golf with last week.

Just because I happen to be an actor I shouldn't get up and say 'vote for this man', knowing as little as I know about him ... I'm a family man and that's about it.

I suppose there really are some Reds in Hollywood ... but don't you think that actually some of the people ... get that reputation because they talk too much about things they don't understand? I don't think an actor has any business to discuss politics unless he is an authority.