Smokey and the Bandit was the first picture [Hal Needham ] directed, and I knew he could handle it. I had just directed Gator, and he saw my style and used that as a pattern.

Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get laundry done.

All of the younger actors keep coming up to me and asking me where all of the land mines are because they know I've stepped on them all.

My acting is a bit like basketball. Most females in my films come off very well. I give great assist. And if I'm lucky, I even score.

I'm really much more like Phil Potter from [the 1979 film] Starting Over. People do think I'm the Bandit [from Smokey and the Bandit ], and I'm a lot more serious than that.

The more the art dominated my life and my house, the more the house became a home.

I had known Hal [Needham] for a while by the time he moved in, so I was sure we'd get along well, and we did. He'd go off and do his gigs and I would do mine, and when we were lucky we got to work on the same ones.