I considered Nat King Cole to be a friend and, in many ways, a mentor. He always had words of profound advice.

I suppose our lives need to be more integrated. We have white communities and black communities and white country clubs and black country clubs. It's very important when we integrate ourselves, and it helps us to have a better understanding of the world, to people all over the world and this is the time in history that we have become very aware of how important that is, so I think it's just really-we have to know each other and work together and play together in order to write about each other.

Whenever you're on television, there's a responsibility to look timeless. I worked with the masters of film, fashion and beauty. I took their words into my soul, like a kind of religion that I exhibited to the world to all of our benefit. To this day, it takes a great deal of time to do my makeup the way I feel comfortable. At 82, it's still a part of what I do. I enjoy it.

I've spent about that amount of time trying to tell the public that there was purpose in... my business, my career and the roller coaster ride... how the people I associated with worked together.

I considered Nat King Cole to be a friend and, in many ways, a mentor. He always had words of profound advice.

I have a line of clothing at J.C. Penney's... and I'm lucky to be affiliated.

I had a mom and a pop who kept telling me that I was wonderful at a very early age. So when someone said to me, "Oh, you're stuck up. Who do you think you are?" I'd say, "I know who I am, and I don't mind being stuck up".