As a kid, I just was a contract player at MGM Studios. They put me into goodness knows how many different roles.Some of them were wonderful and some of them were very just distasteful and awful because I was playing out of my age range and I was thoroughly uncomfortable, let's put it that way. So it took me many years to find my acting feet.

Roles came to me. I was very, very lucky in that respect. Great directors, great writers, great producers - they saw something in me that they wanted for their picture or their play or whatever it was, whether it was Edward Albee or whether it was - or Peter Hall, directors. They would come to me, thank God. I was lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

It was an extraordinary experience to have backup singers like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I have never experienced anything quite like it before and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

All I knew how to do was to act. That's the only thing I had in my favor. That was the thing that propelled me forward.

I haven't been back to London for 40 years to do a play, so to play Madame Arcati there, she would be tickled to death knowing that that was what I was doing. I hope she would. She was a wonderfully unique and very special, very darling woman.

Actually the years when I was playing totally un - well, they were just roles that just went by the board, you wouldn't want to know. But anyway, I'm glad I had that chance to build my craft.

The theater is magical and addictive.