Debbie Reynolds quotes:

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  • Singin' in the Rain (1952) and childbirth were the two hardest things I ever had to do in my life.

  • I loved working with Bette Davis. Bette Davis was great to work with and a wonderful teacher, and very kind to me. We became good friends.

  • I stopped making movies because I don't like taking my clothes off. Maybe it's realism, but in my opinion, it's utter filth.

  • I think you should control yourself a little bit, so you can walk, and when you die, you can walk to your own funeral.

  • I think one of my favourite films is 'Dark Victory' with Bette Davis. Why? She was so wonderful in that film. And maybe I just want a good cry once in a while without having to go through a divorce.

  • I had the sets that meant so much to this character built - right in my home, especially the kitchen, which was important both for her character and for your introduction to her when Albert comes to visit.

  • I live right in front of my daughter. I have a little house right in front of her because I can stay in touch. It's like a little commune, and it's very nice, because you can be close. I can see my granddaughter. I live very close to my brother, too, and my son. We're a very close family.

  • I miss the movies. Still, I understood that my kind of movie has had its day. I thought it was over for me.

  • I gave it all that I had, and it's gratifying that others seem to be receiving it so well.

  • If you do a musical, it's really thrilling and it's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding. I would say, for me, what I like best is what I do, which is, I call it vaudeville, I call it live, I call it in concert, I call it what Bette Midler does, and what Garland did for years, and Ethel Merman.

  • I'm just a movie fan. I used to go to the movies just to watch movies.

  • I just think there's more paparazzi, there's more cable TV, there's millions of networks now, there's more paparazzi. People liked gossip then, and they like gossip now.

  • We've lost a lot of our great stars. I can't hang out with those who aren't here. The phone service to heaven is so bad, you know. But I get to visit with their memories.

  • I'll just stay in [show business] till they stuff me like Trigger, when I drop dead.

  • Every performer should learn a little bit of everything. Most performers today only play the guitar.

  • I'm very strict with myself. I'm an Aries and sort of a challenge to myself.

  • Well, one of the things I did was recreate her home in my home.

  • That's what a writer does; they make things up and that makes for good reading.

  • I have over five thousand costumes and props and cars, and I have a twenty-five thousand square foot warehouse full of memorabilia.

  • I'm not a big shoot-em-up, bang-bang. I like romantic films.

  • The only way you learn is by failure.

  • I do twenty minutes every time the refrigerator door opens and the light comes on.

  • Anything worthwhile is hard, and dancing is very hard, and if you've ever studied dancing of any kind you'd know that to be in precision, three people dancing together.

  • You have to keep practicing, if you're really going to be good.

  • I never dreamt of being in the movies. I was from a very average, I would say, a rather poor family, so my big treat was to work hard all week - I mowed lawns and babysat and washed dishes and washed cars - to go to the movies.

  • I wanted to get that sense of peace and even boredom that comes with long familiarity.

  • If you're a dancer, study singing. You have to do everything and do it well. You have to study acting. You have to study all of it. You have to find workshops, get out on the stage...and fail.

  • Do I run around deploring the world? No. I'm just not into it. I was brought up that way.

  • Every secret gets known to the world.

  • I would never stop watching film. The reason why I say I like the old ones is I like the subject matter better. I thought they had more variety to them, they had more romantic comedies and things that appealed to me more.

  • I've always put my own money into my own shows because today, if you want to stay in the business, you have to produce your own product because there is not enough production and enough people that create today so if you wanna work you produce it or you stay home.

  • As you train and as you develop your talents, you do get better, hopefully, or you get out of the business.

  • Marilyn Monroe was a very sweet girl, she was a very innocent girl.

  • When I was doing theater in the 1950's, 60's and 70's we weren't allowed to film any of the shows that I did, it was against union rules. It was a stupid law, because so much is lost. We now have no record of these famous stage plays, so it turned out to be very narrow-minded thinking.

  • Gene Kelly was a great dancer and I was lucky to be in 'Singin' in the Rain.' He was my teacher when I was 17 years old, when he was 37 years old. He taught me everything.

  • If I ever stop working, I might have a problem. But I never seem to be able to stop working.

  • I started to earn money because we didn't have money.

  • I always avoid not working.

  • I also have a pair of ruby red slippers from the 'Wizard of Oz' and Dorothy's gingham dress...and on and on. I saved as much as I could and still do, because people are still interested in it.

  • I feel sorry for the young people today. I think there's too much paparazzi and not enough protection.

  • I do a lot of things wrong. I lose my temper, and I hate waiting in line, but do I take drugs? No.

  • I don't give parties, and I'm not in that social scene. I couldn't care less.

  • I think the press does, too; it's just the few crazies and paparazzi that give them a bad name. Real writers write good things. My daughter's a writer, and she's a quality writer.

  • One take, so you better be ready and you better be good. One take and that was it. It was something that was spontaneous. Both Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason was like that as well.

  • If you have a secret, keep it to yourself.

  • I had a lot of fun with Frank Sinatra, because he was such a hooligan, and so to himself, he was the king, and everything was his way, and I enjoyed watching that.

  • We now have no record of these famous stage plays, so it turned out to be very narrow-minded thinking.

  • I do an act, and I've been doing an act for 50 years. I do a variety show, which is a musical comedy show. I do comedy, and I do singing, Broadway show tunes and different songs that I like. Been doing it for many, many years.

  • Marilyn Monroe was taken advantage of by most of the men that knew her, including Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio, whom I also knew very well.

  • I just keep traveling and doing live shows.

  • Donald O'Connor was in the film [ 'Singin' in the Rain' ] as well, and he was only 27 years old. So we were closer in age, and had more fun together on the set. Gene was more my teacher and mentor.

  • The young people today are really so creative and talented - I mean, the ones who are really are and they get together and produce and create. They're an entirely different breed from what I was when I was their age.

  • I really can't answer that off the top of my head, my favorite movies. Each one individually was wonderfully made, wonderfully directed, wonderfully written, wonderfully acted, and each one was entirely different.I like romantic movies. I sort of go for the older movies.

  • I loved going to films, but as far as a movie buff, when I came into the movies at 16, life changed a little bit for me, from an onlooker to a person that lived within the industry. So now I would call myself a different sort of fan.

  • If you're a dancer, study singing.

  • My belief also is that Marilyn Monroe passed away long before she should have left us.

  • I guess a lot of things happen still.

  • I don't have to retire to be happy.

  • I don't think anything I could ever do could make Gene Kelly look better than he was.

  • I lead such a boring life.

  • I think people want to stay home and run movies with their whole family at home. It become a family hobby instead of going out to the theater, sad to say. But I think it's very good because it reaches millions that would never see these movies.

  • I've always had life threats, and they've always been for real.

  • I don't think it's the fans, I think it's the fact that they get paid a lot of money for a picture of you doing something wrong. They don't seem to be interested in anything good any more.I think people appreciate what you do.

  • I'll be like Irving Berlin: "There's no business like show business."

  • Weight has never been a problem with me because when you dance, it just stays off.

  • It's sad when you see someone do really well and then you just don't hear about them anymore.

  • I tour all year, 42 weeks a year, so it's hard for me to remember every place I play.

  • I've always had my guard. I have my cook and my guard. I want to eat, and I want to live.

  • I never thought about doing men. Never.

  • Never give power of attorney.

  • A lot of people don't feel like doing very much. Or one project is really all they can do at one time. I can have five or six things going at the same time. It doesn't bother me or tire me, but sometimes it does rattle me.

  • I wasn't wattching television when I was a youngster; there was the radio.

  • I think that the working hours and star pressures pushed a lot of people into drugs in those days. And there seemed to have been a lot of alcoholism.

  • Usually New York has lousy salads.

  • I wanted to be as comfortable in that environment as she was. I moved around those areas in character.

  • Do I read her books? Of course.

  • Travel is hard, but entertaining is joy.

  • Traveling is really exhausting. That will force me into retirement.

  • Live is exciting, live is real, the people are there.

  • I loved Frank [O'Connor], he was wonderful...just don't get on his bad side. I don't think I would have wanted to marry him, but I probably should have since I married idiots anyway.

  • I still perform live primarily. I just keep traveling and doing live shows. The main difference in film, you know in your mind that you are doing it for posterity, you are doing for the eventual audience and it will be around forever.

  • I'm not a cook and I always stick everything in the freezer and then I leave things out, saying 'if it's good today it will be good tomorrow.'

  • For 'Singin' in the Rain,' I bought most of the costumes - the 'Fit as a Fiddle' costumes and the 'Make Them Laugh' Donald O'Connor outfits and the 'Good Morning, Good Morning' clothes we danced in.

  • My favorite [costume in collection] is the white dress Marilyn Monroe wore in the subway breeze scene in 'The Seven Year Itch.'

  • Marilyn [Monroe] was really mistreated.

  • [Marilyn Monroe] was a bit temperamental, a little diva-like, but she didn't deserve what she got.

  • I have over 5000 costumes, and the furniture and memorabilia that goes with them.

  • I have the largest private collection in the world [of Hollywood memorabilia].

  • 'How the West was Won' was very hard, because it was a three cameras technique, meaning three cameras wide. Therefore I wasn't speaking to my fellow performer, I was speaking to a camera, or a line next to the camera. It was difficult to do, because its not real acting. I had to pretend that I was 'seeing' Agnes Moorhead or Jimmy Stewart or Carroll Baker. I wasn't, I was acting to a drawn line. It took me personally two years to make the film, because my character starts at age 16 and I end up being 92 years old in the film. By the end of that production, I was ready for a long nap.

  • I always found that kind of hard, and even though Gene Kelly was also a taskmaster, Bobby [Fosse] was tougher.

  • I began as a true beginner, not knowing how to dance or perform. I just entered a local contest in town as a joke, because if you entered you got a free blouse and scarf.

  • [Las Vegas in the early 1960] was thrilling, exciting... I would describe it as very Parisian.

  • I did win [on a contest]. And that started me on a new path, and into show business.

  • The heads of the studios, like Louis B. Mayer, didn't want to create any more musical stars. So Bobby [Fosse] left and went to New York City to be a choreographer, and created brilliant work.

  • I'm a big believer that Marilyn Monroe was killed.

  • Near the end, she [Marilyn Monroe] was badly treated by Fox Studios, during the 'Let's Make Love' film shoot in 1960, they threw her off the set because she had a cold.

  • [Bob Fosse] was a temperamental fellow - it was his way or the highway.

  • Bobby [Fosse] was very difficult to work with, he wanted to be a big star at MGM, but it was the end of making musical movies at the time.

  • Years ago nudity was not done in the United States. But during that late 1950s era in Vegas it began at the Tropicana, and spread to the other venues. Now the showgirls are going away again and Cirque du Soleil, the magic acts and the animal acts reign in Las Vegas. But I don't think you'll completely lose the boobie shows.

  • I think men like the boobie shows. Vegas will always be Vegas.

  • It is very rewarding to walk out on stage, feeling the love and reception.

  • Vegas will always be Vegas.

  • Joe DiMaggio was quite mean to Marilyn Monroe when they were married. But after she died, he did tend to her grave, which made up for it.

  • You probably only know what you've read [about Marilyn Monroe].You didn't know her. The people who talk about her didn't know her either.

  • It's fun to get back to acting.

  • No one has ever put anything into my suitcase.

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