Hedy Lamarr Quotes

· I must quit marrying men who feel inferior to me. Somewhere, there must be a man who could be my husband and not feel inferior. I need a superior inferior man.

· My problem is, I'm a hell of a nice dame, The most horrible whores are famous. I did what I did for love. The others did it for money.

· If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see her nude, I hope to make you use your imagination

· Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.

· [1960s] It would be wrong of me to say so, but in this country [USA] money is more important than love. Most people here betray you and that's why there is so much chaos. I want to get away from here. I am homesick for Vienna . . . because my home is Vienna and Austria, not America... never!

· [referring to the EFF award for invention frequency hopping] It's about time.

· The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually agent, actor, director, producer, leading man. And you are a star if you sleep with them in that order. Crude but true.

· To be a star is--to own the world and all the people in it. After a taste of stardom, everything else is poverty.

· I win because I learned years ago that scared money always loses. I never care, so I win.

· I was the highest-priced and most important star in Hollywood, but I was "difficult".

· [on working for Cecil B. DeMille in Samson and Delilah (1949)] I was won over to appearing in the picture from the moment I entered his office and saw the extent of the research that he had done on the whole subject. You have no idea how thorough and comprehensive that research is. He has the first suggestion of a script and treatment down to the final shooting script. He has documents and evidence to support everything he does.

· It was wonderful working for a great director like Cecil B. DeMille.

· Delilah is one of my favorite roles.

· [on Tortilla Flat (1942)] John Garfield was wonderful to work with. He later told Life magazine, "I tried to steal scenes from Hedy, Hedy tried to steal them from Frank [Frank Morgan], Frank tried to steal them from me, and the dogs (Morgan's) stole the show."

· Is that chubby-faced Austrian kid in Boom Town (1940) actually me? Did I really wait on the set (being the newest and having the smallest role) to do my close ups, just to wind up looking like that? Clark Gable, so warm and friendly to the insecure actress ... Claudette Colbert, such a lady to me, although much higher in the MGM pecking order.

· [on Spencer Tracy] He was a great actor, but there were times when he made me cry. He was not precisely my favorite person.

· [on Gaslight (1944)] I turned down that one too! Ouch!

· A success that I bypassed, Laura (1944). With Gene Tierney. Otto Preminger, whom I had known way back in Vienna, gave me the script for "Laura," I didn't think it was very good then, and I still don't when I see it on TV now. I believe it's the title song which gives the film its only genuine distinction. If only they had enclosed the sheet music along with the scenario!

· [on Samson and Delilah (1949)] The set is as gigantically faint-making as anything Mr. DeMille ever conceived, and every single extra within a 50 mile radius seems to be assembled as I slowly lead Samson to the top, where he is scheduled to pull the two enormous pillars of the temple down around his ears and everyone else's. And do you know what I am thinking as I watch this panoply on my television screen? Quite simply, it is "I can't take another step in those damn forties high heels!"

· And, again, in "Samson," in the scene where I look dewy-eyed while golden coins are poured over my feet as a reward for betraying Samson. Well, Mr. DeMille, whom I got along with beautifully, dragged me out of a sick bed for that one, and the dewy eyes are a direct result of a roaring 104-degree fever.

· [on Clark Gable] Although I never quite understood his sex appeal, I thought he was one of the nicest people I'd met, and a great practical joker.

· [on Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)] There I am, eight months pregnant, being photographed behind potted palms and in full ball gowns, which fortunately fit the story.

· Is that actually my voice, singing in The Heavenly Body (1944) and My Favorite Spy (1951)? You bet it is! You'd be surprised how well you can sing when you're rich!

· [on Robert Taylor, her co-star in Lady of the Tropics (1939)] One evening I came home and saw my spouse [Gene Markey] staring at a magazine and turning it every which way, and chuckling. I asked him what the joke was, and he replied that he was trying to decide which of us, Bob or I, was more beautiful. ... I also remember teaching Bob Taylor how to kiss more convincingly for the movie cameras, because his usual kiss seemed to me more like a school boy smooch when photographed in close-up.

· [on Ziegfeld Girl (1941)] When I see those infinite stairs in that lavish production number that out-Metro's even Metro [MGM], I break up. The director, Robert Z. Leonard, had instructed me to walk down them regally, with Lana [Lana Turner] on one side and my dear friend Judy [Judy Garland] on the other. I was to float with head erect, arms disdainfully away from my body in the accepted Ziegfeld manner, and never, but never, look down to see where I was going. The fact that I couldn't see in the blinding lights, even straight ahead, was small consolation. And so I descended, teetering down what felt like millions of steps, in a glorious Adrian costume encrusted with enough twinkling stars to make Neil Armstrong jealous. Out of camera range, a board was strapped on my back, and part of the headdress was attached to this apparatus. Also out of camera range, my bosom was taped from behind and I felt a little like some religious penitent in the 13th century walking in a torture procession. And so I came, smilingly, my back top-heavy, and as I paraded gingerly down each stair, I had to dispel thoughts of losing my balance and toppling over headlong down the entire set to the ground miles below - board, tapes, twinkling stars and all ...

· Come Live with Me (1941), with Jimmy Stewart [James Stewart], one of the sweetest men in the world. I was so happy about this picture, it was my first chance to do a charming, humorous story. Until then, my image was that of an exotic creature. My character name in that movie was Johnny Jones. In H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), I was tagged Marvin Myles, and in Comrade X (1940) I was christened Theodore. Why, I wondered, did they give a supposedly sexy lady such weird names? Ah, Hollywood!

· [on White Cargo (1942)] "I am Tondelayo" - and I had to get up with the chickens to have the dark make-up put on all over my body. I was proud of my authentic African dance, which I rehearsed for weeks, and which gave me splinters in my feet. It was done with a bed showing in the background, and it was so sexy almost all of the scene was cut. How I'd like to own that footage today!

· [on I Take This Woman (1940)] We were seated around a table one day, rehearsing our lines. It was my first Metro film, and little Hedy was learning English, when Spencer turned to me and said, briskly, "Get me a taxi." I obligingly arose and started to walk toward the sound-stage door, not realizing that it was the next line in the script.

· [on the extraordinary success of her film Samson and Delilah (1949)] Mr. DeMille is the first director who has ever understood me.

· [on Clark Gable] One time, between takes, he tiptoed over in a conspiratorial manner and told me to follow him quietly. I did so, very earnestly indeed. He led me to a door and, holding his finger over his mouth, opened it. Inside, to my consternation, stood Felix Bressart, the actor who played my father in the film [Comrade X (1940)]. Only he wasn't exactly standing. He was bent over, as a nurse administered a hypodermic needle. Felix suddenly looked up, his dignity intact, but I fled with embarrassment as Clark's gutsy laughter followed me.

· Marie Antoinette (1938). I wasn't in it; but my dear friend, Norma Shearer, was. It's strange, seeing this elaborate movie reduced to fish-bowl size [on TV]. I recall Norma inviting me to a party being given by William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies at their Santa Monica beach house. "Little Old New York" was to be the theme, but this didn't deter Norma, Ty Power, myself and a group of others from merrily raiding Metro's wardrobe department and appropriating the beautiful costumes used in "Marie." I'll never forget the expression on the host's face as our car pulled up the driveway - I thought Mr. Hearst would have apoplexy as we alighted and advanced toward him in our French finery. None of us had realized that he hated the French violently, and it must have seemed to him that the entire French Revolution was coming straight for him!

· Joan Bennett, in Trade Winds (1938). With her hair styled and colored like mine (I think she must have copied my stills).

· [when she encountered Zsa Zsa Gabor (George Sanders's then fiancée) on the set of Samson and Delilah (1949)] Who is this beautiful blond bitch? Get her off the set.

· Hollywood broke my heart. I had to develop a protective shell around me, so people could not see I was hurt. Today, that's all gone, finished. I'm happier than I have ever been in my life because for once I'm in a picture I know will give me an opportunity to act. The girl in The Strange Woman (1946) is a sadist, tempting and feminine, but cruel. It's a part you can get your teeth into. People will either like or dislike me intensely, but at least they will be aware of me. It's a part any actress would love, touching many emotions and delving into strange situations. It's dramatic and forceful. And do you know what? It's the easiest role I've ever had! Because, for an actress, it's easier to "act" than to walk through a picture trying to make something out of nothing.

· Awful things that are said about me just roll right off of me. Before, I couldn't explain I didn't have a chance to do better work. Today, I know if I don't do a good job, I'll have no one to blame but myself. So I intend to do a good job. That's a satisfying feeling. Again, I have always felt pictures should have a message, whether good or bad. This picture [The Strange Woman (1946)] is based on the thought that evil destroys itself. I like that.

· [1946] I don't know how to explain this new sense of freedom I have. I'm working harder than ever before, but it's easier, somehow. It's incredibly difficult to play a negative part and make it positive. And that's what I've been doing for seven years. To play a living, speaking, feeling person who does things is so much easier. To play someone who just stands around is hard.

· The right art on the titles means a lot. They let the audience know before the picture begins that care and thought have gone into the production.

· [on Betty Grable] She has more expression in her legs than a lot of people have in their faces.

· I had heard father and mother speak of the wonderful Max Reinhardt, so I hurried that day to his theatre. I stood in the back and watched his pupils rehearse. Then an elderly man approached me. He said almost gruffly, "I don't like to have people stare at my work. If you must watch, at least join in with the rest." I was petrified. Too scared to move. But I did. I was assigned several lines. Later I asked who he was. He was the celebrated theatrical producer, Max Reinhardt, himself.

· I liked play-acting. I used to do it all the time as a child.

· One day, mother promised me a nice present if I were good. The present was a visit, my first, to the theatre. I saw a stage play for the first time. I was thrilled and speechless. I don't remember the play, its title or anything about it. But I never forgot the first general impression. School held but one interest from then on. I took part in school plays and festivals. My first big part came in "Hansel and Gretel." I think I knew then that I wanted to be an actress. I used to go home and in my room I practiced and played all parts in the play. I often think of what mother must have felt when she heard me talking to myself, as it seemed, hour after hour.

· Grandfather was perhaps the only one who ever encouraged me [to act]. He could play the piano, and to his music I danced. It was awkward, my dancing. But he said he thought it was beautiful. The rest of the family gave me little encouragement.

· You ask that I start at the very beginning? Well, that will be difficult. For you see, there have been so many beginnings that I don't know just what to say first. I remember as a child of three . . . or four . . . I went into mother's dress closet, put on her best evening wear, dabbed my cheeks and lips with whatever makeup I could reach way up on the bureau. And then, as I looked into the mirror, I was an actress.

· [on Pépé le Moko (1937)] "Hedy," my mother told me, "that is a picture you must see. And there is a part in it suited exactly for you." I met Mr. Ritchie and Mr. Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while they were vacationing in Europe. Mr. Mayer signed me to a contract and I was bound for Hollywood. That was in the summer of 1937. At the time he told me that he had a good role in mind for me in a play called "Pepe le Moko." When he returned to Hollywood and we discussed a part suitable for me, he was informed by the Scenario Department that the script had been sold to Walter Wanger. Then I met Charles Boyer at a party given by Lady Castlerosse. We talked for a while discussing a thousand and one subjects. Finally, he thought for a while, and then said, "You know, Mr. Wanger has given me the role of Pepe le Moko in a picture he plans to call Algiers (1938). And I know there is a part in it for you. I thought no more of it until I was called over to Mr. Wanger's studio for a test of the role of Gaby.

· [1938] Right now, aside from living up to the confidence everyone has placed in me, I have one driving ambition. That is to play the role of that romantic, colorful figure, Lola Montez, a celebrated European actress of the last century.

· I was at the studio at seven in the morning, putting on an evening gown, but I couldn't wait to get home to my children to be a nurse. What does Ava Gardner know? She never had a child, which is what it's all about. It's the truth!

· Which director did I like? I've forgotten which. Some of them were not so nice. When somebody isn't accepted by me, it's complete hate. One director never spoke to me, not even hello in the morning. Mr. Mayer never spoke to me. One day I said, "Mr. Mayer, why don't you ever say hello to me?" He said, "Why should I? You're not my wife." It was only because I wouldn't sleep with him. I didn't know anything filthy went on.

References

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001443/quotes/?ref_=nm_dyk_qu