Donald O'Brien Quotes

This midget, whose name was Domenico, once introduced me to a good-looking man who was something like his butler. One year later, the poor little man was found on a dumpheap outside of Rome. The young man had killed him, just a block away from this bar we're sitting in right now! Truth sometimes is stranger than fiction...

(William Berger) was a guy who had everything. He was handsome, knew how to act. He could have gone all the way to the top. But he got mixed up with drugs. I got a couple of parts because he was busy or he was arrested. When I made that Crea film, Berger had just been arrested because somebody had left drugs in his place, on the Costa Amalfi. His wife died in prison. I didn't get along with him because he was too hippy or what they call it, and I'm square! I don't drink, I don't smoke, and that's the way it is...But I knew so many psychedelic sophisticates in the early 1950s in Paris, that I just have my problems with them.

I can't remember how they did this effect [on 1977's Mannaja), but it looked awful! One of the girls said to me that I was made of steel because Maurizio dragged me through the rain with the rope around my neck. That was tough indeed. Poor Maurizio died some time after that in a tennis accident.

I remember that this production [IL SESSO DELLA STREGA] was so cheap we were thrown out of the hotel we were staying at. Believe it or not, we realized that each one of us would have to pay for himself! They sure had money trouble.

Now (Burt Lancaster) was a guy, terrific. I've worked with some Hollywood actors, but he was worth all of them. He used to be a circus acrobat. He had this marvellous physique, and while other actors would choose to act like primadonnas when it came to dangerous scenes, Lancaster would do most of the stuff himself. And he was a friendly guy, always helping us little-knowns when we had problems. This was one of my first more important parts and I was very unsure of myself. He was always telling us what we could do to improve our stuff. A great guy.

Svenson taught me how to speak German in this film! I didn't know anything, and this guy, who used to be a Swedish ice-hockey player who went to Vietnam as a Marine, he stood there with me, coaching me things like `Bringen Sie die Gefangenen in mein Buro!' Williamson also was a very nice person. I had one wonderful scene in this movie, where I...I was outranking them, they are my prisoners, I walk in front of the prisoners, and I have to say something like, in a very contemptuous way: `Americans...Italians...Jews...Irish!' I felt like a traitor!

Sollima was considered to be the intellectual among the Western filmmakers. I enjoyed working with him. He was a very intelligent and gifted man.

(Gordon Mitchell) weighed 220 pounds when he did these muscle pictures, and he went down to 160 pounds for this movie, like nothing.

I always preferred those movies I would have a large role in. If I had to choose between a small movie with a big role and a big movie with a small role, I'd take the one with more screen time. It's not very satisfying for an actor to get work and then ending up on the cutting room floor.

I slipped out in the bathroom of a Parisian hotel and hit my head. I was in coma for about three days, and when I woke up, one half of my body was paralyzed.

Carné used to behave like a hysterical maniac. I had a small part in that film. Maurice Ronet and Annie Girardot were also in it. He was screaming like a maniac. But he was a masterful director. LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS is one of the greatest films ever made.

[O'Brien joined the Dublin Gate Theatre) where Orson Welles had started. Very few people know that he started in Dublin, most people think it was the Mercury in New York. James Mason, Peggy Cummins, Edward Mulhare - they all used to work for the Gate Theatre. My father was extremely furious when he found out that I was wasting my time being an actor. He also got wind of the fact that the star of the production (Micheál Mac Liammóir) was one of the biggest queens alive. He also played the part of Jago in Orson Welles' OTHELLO. This really didn't help. He cut my money off."

My father was a magnificent Irishman with a Barrymore profile and the physique of a boxer.

[Camilla Fulci] was about 15 or so at the time. I tried to remind her of her riding along the set [of 1975's Four of the Apocalypse). She looked very strange, when I said that. A stuntman led me away and showed me that the lower half of the poor girl's body was paralyzed because of a riding accident, just like that of Christopher Reeves! She was such a lovely girl. It made me feel very bad that I had said that."

(Camille Keaton) was very nice, but I remember, when we talked to each other, she behaved like a verginella, a little virgin, you know, always avoiding sex in conversation. She did sex movies, you say?