Fay Wray

I think the studio gave me that series on purpose, because they knew perfectly well that Robert Riskin was ill and that I needed to go to work. They gave me that series to do.

I went to Washington to ask for a little residual payment for the people who had written films in the early, early days, people who never got any residuals on tapes or anything at all.

Actually, the camera was never overhead at any time. It was always a side view of me. Subsequently, after the picture was released, I saw some scenes from above and my clothes being pulled-and I think that was added later.

There were shots of Kong pulling at my clothes, but only in horizontal and never from above. Never from above.

Juan Tripp was a friend. Good name for an airline man, huh? Juan Tripp after another?

Paul Lucas had a particularly amusing accent, so I chuckled. That was terrible; I shouldn't have done that, but he took it too big. He got up and said he couldn't work with people who laughed at him!

Cary Grant was wonderful to work with on stage. He would move downstage, so that as he looked at me the audience had to look at me, too. He knew a lot about the theater and how to move around. He was very secure.

Lillian Gish thought that there should be a cabinet position for the arts and I think she was right. I think she was right.

Crawford washed her hands a lot. She washed her arms all the way up past her elbows. She just couldn't get enough done in that direction. She was compulsive about being clean, clean, clean!

For the purposes of the play, it was perfect to be able to use that and the stresses and strains that there were. At the end of the play, the mother realizes the terrible things she had done.

I think to have done 'Titanic' would have been a tortuous experience altogether. I feel good about where my life is, now. I feel free and joyous and happy and more liberated than I have ever been.

It was so satisfying for me - a great reward, just to see it done well. And it was beautifully directed by my daughter Susan Riskin. Imagine, a play about my mother directed by my daughter?!

I would say the secret is to be enthusiastic about everything that comes into your life. To care, to care about people. To be excited about everything that comes close to you. I love to read. And I love to write, mostly.

As far as advice, that will be in my next book, my next collection. I certainly never like to instruct anyone, but just say as I feel. That's the same as advice, isn't it?

My next book is Scene by Scene: as Seen by Fay Wray. It'll be about different incidents. Just my feelings about quite a few people. Attitudes. My thoughts about the universe and simple things like that.

There is a lot of strength and intelligence in Hollywood.

Only in your imagination can you revise.

Cary Grant and I were doing a play in New York. He had a crush on me. Whenever we went to a party, he would always sit on the floor beside me. I thought that was kind of beautiful, like that's where he wanted to be.

She wanted us to feel we were above everyone in the town. She really did tell us that we were related to Chief Justice John Marshall, and that may have been true. I never did bother to find out.

I don't know why Sinclair Lewis fell in love with me. He didn't get even the slightest response from me. But his letters were lovely. And the poems he wrote me were lovely. I used some of them in my book.

When the picture was finished, they took me into the sound room and then I screamed more for about five minutes just steady screaming, and then they'd cut that in and add it.

They were very considerate, I must say. Every time I felt I was about to slip out of these fingers and would yell for help, they'd let me down and re-organize things.

Sometimes I worked with just a background of a rock or a tree or black velvet, and just had to imagine the whole thing.

My children didn't when they were little because I thought that they had to be of a certain age. I hoped they liked me well enough not to want to see me in that sort of a spot.

It was good for us, I suppose. Those kinds of times produce qualities in us that make us better for having had them. My parents were not getting along. My mother was quite intolerant of friendships that were being developed.