What we all like in life, I think, is the challenge of making something... that is not easy to do.

What we all like in life, I think, is the challenge of making something... that is not easy to do.

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.

I don't have too many friends. I have only a few people who I really love.

You see, it took me so long, it was such a struggle, to move myself out of musicals - because I had had a success, nobody wanted to allow me to direct a non-musical picture. It was so hard. And the only way I could get it going was to become a producer myself.

You know, sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That's how it all began.

My childhood wasn't very happy. It's a long, grim story about being a Jew in a small southern town.