Quotes

All those years at MGM I hid a black terror behind a cheerful face.

I was an introvert in an extrovert profession.

I really owe my first big opportunity to Irving Thalberg's technique of remaking pictures to his satisfaction. I was hired for a bit part as Helen Hayes' son in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) and, after shooting was completed, Thalberg kept adding scenes and reshooting so that, by accident, my bit part became a significant role.

[asked why he returned to television in the late 1960s] Films were already changing into what they are today when I became "available" in 1962. The kind of role I was supposedly best suited for -- light romantic comedy leads -- no longer existed. There wasn't a place for me. Feature films, you might say, passed me by.

[on his favorite role: 'The Enchanted Cottage'] The role symbolized my own life, though I wasn't a veteran who returned from war tragically disfigured. It demonstrated my theory that we are all, somehow, handicapped. Shyness and fear of people were my invisible scars. These were finally overcome, just as in the movie, because of the love of a woman who saw the 'perfect man' through all the imperfections.