I don’t care whether people like me or dislike me. I’m not on earth to win a popularity contest. I’m here to be the best human being I possibly can be.
I lived a very don’t-ask, don’t-tell life.
I said, God, the press and people, they just really hate me and I’m really trying. Geraldine Page said, Listen to this, Tab. If people don’t like you, that’s their bad taste.
People believe what they want to believe.
I learned denial from my mother. I just never confronted things and if anybody did, I just would go crazy.
A lot has been written about Tony Perkins and myself and I figured, Let’s get it straight. I had a relationship with Tony for two to three years, but those are only threads in the tapestry of my whole life.
People place such importance on the external. It’s disgusting.
Hollywood cools, and when it cools you have to go to where the work is. I ran off to Italy to do spaghetti westerns.
I was a major fan of people in the industry, I was a major movie fan and I was just thrown into it. I was never a gregarious kind of a young man. I was very frightened. It was difficult to divorce myself from myself.
The people that really were important, that mattered, had a great foundation. I had no training. I had to learn while doing, and it was really difficult.
Once in a while a good opportunity would come along, like the first ‘Playhouse 90 ever to air – working in television afforded me my best opportunities. The (film) industry was going through such turmoil at the time – studios didn’t know where to go anymore, they were falling apart, television was there. They didn’t know what kind of films people wanted. The European films were making a huge impact because those films wanted real people in real situations.
I did Polyester, and I dont regret one minute of it. It was wonderful.
Rock Hudson wasn’t my type. He’s a great guy and had a great sense of humor.
I’d work for John Waters again, because he’s so off the wall.
John Wayne treated me fine, but that macho stuff turns me off. It’s not real.
All the things that happen to people in the industry today, the actors, what they have to put up with, all the people wanting to know every single moment of their lives – I think it’s really sad.
I knew Jimmy Dean. He tested for ‘Battle Cry’. Paul Newman tested for ‘Battle Cry’. I did nine tests to finally get that role.
I turned into a workaholic to the point of where my health was in jeopardy.
