"Hail to the Chief" was played, and the President got up and made a gracious opening remark. "I've been in this office for six years, and yet every time I hear that music, I turn around wondering who they're playing it for."

Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down.

The first time I had got an offer to come to Hollywood, I turned it down. I said, "No, I'm an actor of the stage.

My children didn't have my advantages; I was born into abject poverty.

When I made Spartacus during the McCarthy Era, we were losing our freedom. It was an awful, awful way. McCarthy saw Communists everywhere, in every level of government and they concentrated on Hollywood and especially on Hollywood writers.

Sometimes, the thing that ties you down sets you free.

I never had any desire to be a film actor. I never thought I was the good-looking movie type, which I assumed they wanted.