I arrived in Hollywood twenty pounds overweight and as strong as an ox. But if I put on a white tails and tux like Fred Astaire, I still looked like a truck driver.

I didn't want to move or act like a rich man. I wanted to dance in a pair of jeans. I wanted to dance like the man in the streets.

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

I wanted to do new things with dance, adapt it to the motion picture medium.

Things danced on the screen do not look the way they do on the stage. On the stage, dancing is three-dimensional, but a motion picture is two-dimensional.

The way I look at a musical, you are commenting on the human condition no matter what you do. A musical may be light and frivolous, but by its very nature, it makes some kind of social comment.

She's one of those third year girls who gripe my liver... You know, American college kids. They come over here to take their third year and lap up a little culture... They're officious and dull. They're always making profound observations they've overheard.