Acting became my best friend. When I auditioned to get into college, the teacher said you belong here, Mr. Klugman, and to hear that word belong - I never belonged anywhere before - and suddenly I belonged in acting and it was so comfortable and I loved it.

The only tool we have as artists is selectivity. If you're a painter, you select the color, the lines, how severe they should be. As an actor you develop how angry you should be. You select how angry you should be. You listen to the other actor and then you react. In film, sometimes the other actor isn't even there. You have to play the scene. What I do is I call on my experience on the stage. I play the scene and I hope that I reach a certain level of integrity because that's what I learned on the stage.

There was no sacrifice in acting for me, even when I was starving in New York. I went three days without eating. Charlie Bronson and I sold blood for $5 so that we could eat.

Walter Matthau made all the big money and he was wonderful as Oscar Madison on the stage. You couldn't beat him. I know because I replaced him on Broadway. He was just delightful.

Fred Silverman, the head of ABC, he offered me a lot of comedy series but I told him I'd already been the best comedy series around, "The Odd Couple," and so when he saw that I did Quincy he called my agent and said, Jack turns me down? All my good series and he ends up playing an undertaker." And this was the HEAD of ABC series.

I love the theater because I love the live audience and when we went three cameras we have a live audience in the study so we had someone to play to and react to. That laughter.

I saw John Garfield smoke. He was my idol, so I smoked. I even smoked like him.