I think one of my favourite films is 'Dark Victory' with Bette Davis. Why? She was so wonderful in that film. And maybe I just want a good cry once in a while without having to go through a divorce.
I loved going to films, but as far as a movie buff, when I came into the movies at 16, life changed a little bit for me, from an onlooker to a person that lived within the industry. So now I would call myself a different sort of fan.
I would never stop watching film. The reason why I say I like the old ones is I like the subject matter better. I thought they had more variety to them, they had more romantic comedies and things that appealed to me more.
I'm not a big shoot-em-up, bang-bang. I like romantic films.
I still perform live primarily. I just keep traveling and doing live shows. The main difference in film, you know in your mind that you are doing it for posterity, you are doing for the eventual audience and it will be around forever.
When I was doing theater in the 1950's, 60's and 70's we weren't allowed to film any of the shows that I did, it was against union rules. It was a stupid law, because so much is lost. We now have no record of these famous stage plays, so it turned out to be very narrow-minded thinking.
Donald O'Connor was in the film [ 'Singin' in the Rain' ] as well, and he was only 27 years old. So we were closer in age, and had more fun together on the set. Gene was more my teacher and mentor.
'How the West was Won' was very hard, because it was a three cameras technique, meaning three cameras wide. Therefore I wasn't speaking to my fellow performer, I was speaking to a camera, or a line next to the camera. It was difficult to do, because its not real acting. I had to pretend that I was 'seeing' Agnes Moorhead or Jimmy Stewart or Carroll Baker. I wasn't, I was acting to a drawn line. It took me personally two years to make the film, because my character starts at age 16 and I end up being 92 years old in the film. By the end of that production, I was ready for a long nap.
Near the end, she [Marilyn Monroe] was badly treated by Fox Studios, during the 'Let's Make Love' film shoot in 1960, they threw her off the set because she had a cold.
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