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.

I love rhythmic dancing - I'm not derogating it at all. It's just that sometimes you want to whisper, "I adore you." And for that you need strings and woodwinds.

I took it as it came and it happened to be very nice.

I got started dancing because I knew it was one way to meet girls.

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

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

In the 1930s there was this tendency in Hollywood to portray everyone as rich. Even if they were doing a poor man's dance, they were all so nicely clothed, gowned, coiffured. That's why I decided to wear white socks, loafers, T-shirts, and blue jeans. I had a sociopolitical context in front of me: I was a child of the Depression who danced in a way that would represent the common man.