To me, the series was the end of the actor, when the series ended.

But the working I would always want to do.

So I felt, well, I'll make the money and, with the money, do what I want to do.

From that, I became very anxious to produce something of my own.

They had to start shaving my chin when I was 12 years old because light started to pick it up.

They kept me in short pants as long as they could, until they were shaving the hair on my legs because it was beginning to photograph.

If it's boring, then it's tiring.

I never say too much about that in public interviews, because it disappoints the public to tell them you're not that crazy about a property you did that possibly they liked.

So then you have to say to yourself: Do I want to be rich, or do I want to do good work?

Well, they just don't know anything else except that one form of their business, acting, and they don't really want to learn any other part of it, or they would. Directing and producing and putting a show together is very creative, for me.

I would also like to act, once in a while, but not get up every morning at 5:30 or six o'clock and pound into the studio and get home at 7:30 or eight o'clock at night, or act over and over and over every night on Broadway, either.

People like Spencer Tracy held up because they had the background originally, but to this day they never have changed Mr. Gable's role, or most of them.

I remember Mr. Mayer very well. He sort of liked to be the father - no, he liked to be treated like you thought he was Daddy, but he didn't treat you like Daddy at all.

They thought in terms of: whatever you had that started you at the box office, this was it.

So I'm in that half-hour business where the most money is, so that eventually I feel like the people that put on the Dupont show, like maybe my artistic effort is going to be a little different.

The studio didn't ask them to learn their trade, they just worked them, and when that personality or that gimmick or whatever they had ran dry at the box office, they were dropped and out.

There was never any effort made out there to improve the artist.

But I want to do good work, after this series.

There was only so much television you could do.

To me, the series was the end of the actor, when the series ended.

So whatever I might have started to learn at that age was all undone by the next director and next crew in the next cheap picture, because I was allowed to get away with murder.

So if I keep making mistakes on Broadway or tape or film, producing, directing or acting, I can go along and do it - so long as I'm not investing too much capital in these things.

I just knew how to do the one thing I did, and whether I did it well or not depended on who the director was.

A nice, steady job I don't need that bad. I'm not that satisfied with it.

A lot of people like to run in plays because it's a nice, steady job.

In those days, even as a boy, I watched some people that I knew were living way beyond their means.

I hope this series is good work, but it is in the half-hour medium, which is limited to a kind of mediocrity that sponsors are just dying to have right now, and the public, for some reason, is unconsciously demanding.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.