Oh, what the hell did I know? I went to the set the first day in full makeup and the director told me to take it off. So I did the film without makeup. I had nothing to do with anything I did. I never understood why I was so famous.

What I'd really like to say about stardom is that it gave me everything I never wanted.

I don't mind growing old. If I have to go before my time, this is how I'll go-- cigarette in one hand, glass of scotch in the other.

Don't think for a minute that bad publicity and endless criticism don't leave their claw marks on everyone concerned. Your friends try to cheer you up by saying lightly, "I suppose you get used to it, and ignore it." You try. You try damned hard. But you never get used to it. It always wounds and hurts.

God knows I've got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don't.

I dealt with men who had tempers, and who could get violent-Lord knows how I had to defend myself against Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra, and from Artie Shaw's verbal abuse. But George [C. Scott] was a different category of animal when he got drunk. He'd break into my hotel room, which he did in Italy, London and at the Beverly Hills Hotel, attack me to where I was frightened for my life, and scream, 'Why won't you marry me?' Well, I would never marry a man who couldn't control his liquor. Me, I'm a happy drunk. I laugh, I dance. I certainly don't break bottles and threaten to kill.

Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off the screen. They couldn't have been more wrong