I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I dont know what she was--anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted.

I'm a big fan of the Pixar movies, and Ed Catmull, who wrote a book about his experiences producing them, talks about how it takes three or four years to get it right.

A few years later, when I was still going to these meetings, I was also "second-acting" every Broadway show [walking in with the crowd after intermission]. I snuck in to see Grease with John Travolta in kind of a secondary part and Adrienne Barbeau playing Rizzo, into Pippin, hung out with Ben Vereen and Bob Fosse. It was an amazing time for a teenager.

Everything that you'd see on The Ed Sullivan Show was at the Tannen's Magic. You'd think that if you could afford a trick like Doc Nixon's Dove Vanish, then you could be on The Ed Sullivan Show as an 8-year-old kid.

I started as a ventriloquist, a very bad ventriloquist. And people saw my lips moving and it was ridiculous, so finally I decided I'd better change my occupation.

There was an old brochure for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts with a quote from Robert Redford or someone, that said, "You're only as good as you dare to be bad."

Never take "NO" for an answer.