I never thought of myself as a movie star. I'm just a working girl. A working girl who worked her way to the top -- and never fell off.

I learned at a very early age that life is a battle. My family was poor, my neighborhood was poor. The only way that I could get away from the awfulness of life, at that time, was at the movies. There I decided that my big aim was to make money. And it was there that I became a very determined woman.

I never thought of myself as a movie star. I'm just a working girl. A working girl who worked her way to the top -- and never fell off.

When you're dead, you're dead. No one is going to remember me when I'm dead. Oh maybe a few friends will remember me affectionately. Being remembered isn't the most important thing anyhow. It's what you do when you are here that's important.

You're beautiful in your wrath.

My life is fair game for anybody. I spent an unhappy, penniless childhood in Brooklyn. I had to slug my way up in a town called Hollywood where people love to trample you to death. I don't relax because I don't know how. I don't want to know how. Life is too short to relax.

I defy any newcomer not to believe his or her publicity at the very beginning. It's only natural. At least it was for me.