- Without security, it is difficult for a woman to look or feel beautiful.
- Even when I was single, I owned homes and gardens. I buy beauty when other women buy jewels. Land is security to me. I need gardens that are mine to walk on.
- [on Ernst Lubitsch in That Uncertain Feeling (1941)] That was probably the happiest picture I ever made because Lubitsch was such a funny man, such a darling man. He played the piano between every take, and there would be laughs. Then I always ask him to do the scene for me before I did it only to have a laugh.
- [1935] The average cinema scene lasts for less than a minute on the screen. There are possibly ten "takes," that is, ten times the cameras actually grind out the scene. Then probably three of them, the best three, are studied. A clever film editor takes various "frames" or parts from each of these three and builds them into a perfect sequence. And just imagine! - the actress sits back and says: "What a great actress am I!" That's why I want to do a play in which sustained artistry will prove whether or not I am really the actress I believe I am!
- [Norma Shearer] was so nice to me when I was in Cailfornia.
- [on her early days in Hollywood] I was really frightfully snubbed. I won't mention names, but I was coldly treated by some of the stars. The one person who was really nice to me and from whom I least expected it - I don't know why, now that I know her - was Jean Harlow. She came clear across the room to meet me and said something very gracious about admiring my work and wanting to know more of me.
- [1935] If I found a man I loved very much I would marry him. My career could take its chances. Marriage would come first. And as far as husbands go, give me a British one rather than an American, although I don't think nationality will matter much when I'm really in love.
- I am certainly surprised the way engagements occur in this country [United States]. I've never seen any sense to announcing a promise to marry a man unless you are deeply in love with him and planning the wedding. Of course, some people say engagements are good publicity, but I don't think so!
- I had heard that Hollywood was famed for its hospitality and warmth. All the American people I've met have impressed me as being unusually gracious and delightful. I had looked forward to Hollywood and thought I was going to have a grand time. British people are much more reserved and harder to become acquainted with, but Americans are widely known for their generous attitude toward strangers. Well, I went to two parties on my first visit to Hollywood, and no more. When I came back this time [1935], I took a house at the beach and, determining to live my own life quietly, gradually I have found friends. Strangely enough, the same people who insulted me on my first trip are now very pleasant, and I have discovered in other groups that warm American hospitality which I had hoped for. It's a strange town, but I'm growing to like it.
- [on her transition from exotic characters to normal roles] I don't know whether I'm going to like it or not. It's much easier to get into the spirit of a part, don't you think, when you have the aid of costuming and make-up? If I dress up in another person's clothes, I can easily make myself feel like that person. When I repeat the lines of a scene I think, "How would the woman whose clothes I am wearing act?" It's easier for me to be something which I am not than it is to act myself.
- [on The Dark Angel (1935)] This picture may show me up as an actress. If I'm terrible, I shall have to go back to my wigs and gold paint. If I'm fairly good, it will give me a great feeling of achievement. I shall know then that I have started on the road to becoming an actress.
- It seems to me that how I screen is more or less a make-up problem. My Oriental appearance developed as a result of a make-up man's imagination. I wasn't so very Oriental in the beginning, but one of Alexander Korda's men watched me and sold Mr. Korda on the idea of accentuating the line of my eyes. With each succeeding picture it was accentuated more, and finally I found myself in Thunder in the East (1934). I should think that if they could make me Oriental, they could make me un-Oriental just as easily.
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