Listen, when I arrived in Los Angeles in the early '40s, there were just 640,000 people. Every loser in the world headed there because there was no c… - Robert Mitchum

Got the same attitude I had when I started. Haven't changed anything but my underwear. I've played everything except midgets and women. People can't make up their minds whether I'm the greatest actor in the world - or the worst. Matter of fact, neither can I. It's been said I underplay so much, I could have stayed home. But I must be good at my job. Or they wouldn't haul me around the world at these prices.

Yeah, I'm unique—like an actor who has only one eye in the middle of his forehead. Or the Elephant Man. I've got a patent on the type. To be an actor is to be a moveable freak. Once you have been up there on that giant screen, everybody knows you—and you know no one. It counts as a source of embarrassment.

She may have been right. Looking back, I suppose I was expecting, as a young actor, to discuss Stanislavski or 'Acting as an art.' Instead, I palled around with the crew—the grips, the stagehands—and the conversation centered around the two B's—broads and booze.