At 50, I thought proudly: Here we are, half century! Being 60 was fairly frightening. You want to know how I spent my 70th birthday? I put on a completely black face, a fuzzy black Afro wig, wore black clothes and hung a black wreath on my door.

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.

I don't know what they mean by an icon. I never thought of myself as being that. It seems strange to me. I was just modeling, thinking of as many different poses as possible. I made more money modeling than being a secretary. I had a lot of free time. You could go back to work after an absence of a few months. I couldn't do that as a secretary.

[when told not to speak ill of the dead] 'Just because someone is dead does not mean they have changed!'

Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.

Old age is no place for sissies.