If Fred Astaire is the Cary Grant of dance, I'm the Marlon Brando.

Mentally, I write myself a little story. Of course, sometimes you have a song that says, "Do that." My best example is Singin' in the Rain. Arthur Freed had insisted that the song should be in the picture, but he was very anxious about it.

I don't even want to discuss Flashdance. I'm no critic, but that's an interesting phenomenon, that picture.

America now has more and better dancers than they have ever had in the history of the country, but that won't account for the public wants to see.

If I played a tough kid on the street I couldn't go out there and get into fifth position. I had to dance like a tough kid on the street.

I think dancing is a man's game and if he does it well he does it better than a woman.

Like an athlete, [dance] is an everyday job. You have to stay in shape - unless you just want to loaf through a couple of hoofing routines. But that just didn't satisfy me.