When I first went on the stage I was 17 and under the legal age for performers.
When I act I try to express the suffering or joy I've known during my lifetime.
I could depend a lot on my shaking, though I never shimmied vulgarly and only to express myself.
I never felt I belonged. I was always an outsider.
I never accepted the idea that I was all through. I guess no person who has once been a star can do that, ever.
There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.