Lee Grant Quotes & Sayings

Shared laughter creates a bond of friendship. — Lee Grant

From the time she was born, until she was fifteen, I didn't know where I left off and she began. We were joined at the hip or the heart or the brain. — Lee Grant

I did my very first film with Kirk in Detective Story when he was the greatest, greatest star in the world. I fell in love with him, had a crush on him then. — Lee Grant

When I became a director, I wanted to convince a very reluctant Sidney into allowing me to go on the journey of his life. Sidney had gone ahead of every other African American actor. — Lee Grant

I saw Warren's eyes attach themselves to something in the distance. I turned around and saw in the next room, the dining room, Dolly Parton, quietly sitting at the table, alone, scribbling on a pad. In an instant, I could feel myself dropped as this new yummy dish was making Warren's mouth water. He actually licked his lips as he left me on the couch and sat down next to her at the table. I followed him like a jilted wife, jealous, clumsy. I needn't have bothered; Dolly was immune. Warren tried the whole deck of cards. Dolly concentrated on her numbers, adding, subtracting, and smiling adorably at his attempts. Watching her, I couldn't blame him for trying. It was 1975. Dolly was all cream and roses, just astonishing and nice. — Lee Grant

Around eighteen, Dinah suddenly became interested in acting. I worked with her on This Property Is Condemned, a Tennessee Williams one-act, for her audition for the Actors Studio. Then came Marty Maraschino in Grease, then a running part in Soap, a hot TV series. Then the lead in Neil Simon's play I Ought to Be in Pictures. She was accepted by the Studio and quickly hired by Robert Redford as the girl in Ordinary People who commits suicide. — Lee Grant

I know what you go through when you learn someone close to you has died. — Lee Grant

What goes on between a father and a son, which is usually such a private matter, is that they are able to be honest with each other, and be honest with me, as a director. It's just remarkable. — Lee Grant

Kirk is a man, and he loves it. He loves women. — Lee Grant

Things happen in your life that leave an imprint. Injustice left the deepest imprint on mine. — Lee Grant

I've been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out. — Lee Grant

I don't think I fit the Marilyn Maxwell mode. — Lee Grant

A lot of very, very big stars were going down and not being seen or heard from again. Kirk took a huge chance in putting a blacklisted writer's name on the screen and somehow or other, he survived it, like he survives everything. — Lee Grant

Somehow he promised each of us a great romance, without a touch or a word. He was an accomplished tease. — Lee Grant

The stewardess was none other than Brenda Vaccaro, my great friend in real life. Brenda decks me. I fall to the floor of the plane, out of commission. She's saved the day. Brenda and I took longer to do our fight scene than any of our other scenes, because we fell down laughing for three takes. The wonderful absurdity of my turning the heavy wheel to open the plane door, her hand on my shoulder, turning me to look at her cute face, then doing our rehearsed one, two, three punches and shoves, just broke us up. My legs were jelly, I was wheezing with laughter - it was the closest I'd gotten to being in a school play. Sympathy for our nervous young director pulled us together just enough to get through it. — Lee Grant

I am proud of Kirk. I think he drums to his own drummer in every way. — Lee Grant

You don't need a love scene to show love. — Lee Grant

If you are a star in Hollywood then you are always a star in your eyes, but not always in the eyes of new directors for whom your great performances are always fading into the past. — Lee Grant

Every actor in the room honored Sidney for being there so many years before. And everybody was so moved to be at a place where history was being made again. It was tangible. — Lee Grant

It's a very good feeling to be around a man who thinks women are juicy. — Lee Grant

(Alfred's sister, Olive Deering, was famous in those years for her sentiments during her filming of the endless DeMille epic The Ten Commandments: "Who do I have to fuck to get off this picture?") — Lee Grant

This is our lives. The way to give it dignity is to tell the truth. — Lee Grant

People break down after a couple of hours. All the defenses go down, and there's a kind of communication that if I spent 20 years in a living room with one of these people, I would never, never know as much about them as I do in that one day. — Lee Grant

My instinct was that it was Sidney's childhood in the Bahamas that gave him the fearlessness to fight racism. So this documentary was a kind of rounding out of what had begun in that scene in In the Heat of the Night. — Lee Grant