Once a song and dance man, always a song and dance man. Those few words tell as much about me professionally as there is to tell.

Though I soon became typecast in Hollywood as a gangster and hoodlum, I was originally a dancer, an Irish hoofer, trained in vaudeville tap dance. I always leapt at the opportunity to dance in films later on.

Outside of my family, the prime concern of my life has been nature and its order, and how we have been savagely altering that order.

My childhood was surrounded by trouble, illness, and my dad's alcoholism, but as I said, we just didn't have the time to be impressed by all those misfortunes. I have an idea that the Irish possess a built-in don't-give-a-damn that helps them through all the stress.

New Orleans is 5 feet below sea level, which means that holes dug in the ground immediately fill with water. Coffins were punctured and sunk with weights, which didn't stop them from floating up out of the cemeteries and down the streets of the French Quarter on stormy nights. The solution was to bury people above ground, in what are called vaults.

Once a song and dance man, always a song and dance man. Those few words tell as much about me professionally as there is to tell.

You dirty, double-crossing rat.